The Skyliner

Issue date: 3/29/06 Section: Opinion

Stone

Ryan Stone
Visual Arts Editor


Our lives are stories. Each day is a new piece to the story. This would most likely go against Christian worldview, but it is the way life is. If a person is Buddhist or Hindu their story can contribute to our understanding of Christianity. During training for my mission trip to Romania last summer, the leader told the group that for almost a century missionaries to India had been rather unsuccessful, but after a person whose story was heard spoke, Christianity flourished.

For years the missionaries had told people that Buddhism was wrong and that they should turn to Christ, but what was missed was the understanding that for the most part those people were not Buddhist but animist. They believed evil spirits would eat their children if they were not appeased and that fear overrode the want to change religions. Once a man who was converted shared his story and his knowledge with missionaries, things changed because instead of preaching the wrongs of Buddhism missionaries taught the freedom in Christ that would take away the supposed evil demons.

When it comes to living life and sharing the gospel, our approach would be better to be more like Christ's. Often he told a story or listened to someone's story and then he shared. By letting the world and its people share their stories, we can listen and begin to genuinely care about them. I often hear that a person hears the gospel 20 or 30 something times before he or she comes to Christ. The attitude that prevails becomes, "let's tell them the gospel so they will be one closer to salvation." Maybe if we stopped worrying about how many times it takes and worry about their story and how they got to where they are then it would take only a fraction of tries, because we cared instead of making them a target.

I can remember meeting a girl and the first time we talked we got in a huge fight, I thought she was overly conservative and she thought I was overly liberal. It wasn't until I heard her story that I understood that because of her terrible home life she had to be the way she was. I didn't know her story. Slowly I am learning to suspend judgment until I've heard someone's story. Until I know the past and the experiences that make up their life I don't know anything about them. Maybe that is why biographies and memoirs are so popular, we want to see the events of yesterday that make up the people we love today.

Living life as a story and taking in other people's stories is an amazing way to live. Do not be afraid to share you story, ever. I often talk about some of my darkest and deepest sins with people because it is a big part of my story. It's funny for me because I'm comfortable with talking about it, but they are not comfortable hearing about it. When the time is right openly share that story because others can and will learn from it. We should take the embarrassing moments and fun ones and add them to our story, because that makes us who we are.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools