Your Heart’s Historian

You and I are the historians of our story, constantly telling and re-telling our story to our own heart. What story are you telling? Who will you be in your story? Who will you become before it is over? And does the story you are telling line up with God’s version of the story?

It is a unique role that we have in our lives. We are simultaneously the central players in our story and the historians tasked with preserving and telling the story to our own hearts. It is essential that we tell ourselves the right version of the story.

There are always multiple interpretations to the facts of our lives, and sometimes two divergent narratives can both be factually true, while only one actually aligns with God’s version. Consider Joseph’s story in Scripture. His brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, seemingly condemning him to a cruel, unjust fate; however, when Joseph’s story gets told in Psalm 105:17 a completely different truth emerges. When the psalmist recounted Joseph’s role in Israel’s history, he said, “He (God) sent a man before them—Joseph, sold as a slave.” Those are curious, powerful words.

Joseph’s brothers thought they were selling him to a caravan of human-traffickers, but God was actually sending him. At the end of the story, God’s version of the story proved the truest. After reuniting with his brothers in Genesis 45:4-5 Joseph said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” Later on, he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done ,the saving of many lives.”

To be sure, there were moments when Joseph was not aware of God’s larger narrative, but it was true nonetheless, and it is true for us too.

In the world of biography there are authorized and unauthorized biographies of a person’s life. Sometimes the painful facts of our lives lead us toward an unauthorized account when God is actually doing something greater than we can see in the moment. So, as we grapple with the facts of our lives, wondering if anything good can emerge, let’s adjust our gaze, seek God’s interpretation, and determine that the story will positively transform us.

A compelling feature of every great story is the transformation of its key characters. Flat, unchanging characters are never compelling, but heroes that struggle and fall, eventually rising to greater heights are inspirations. We have the opportunity to live those positive transformations.

It is never easy, and the change always comes at great cost. But if we realize that our costly decisions are hinges, swinging us toward either bitterness and stagnation or transformation and power, we can rise even amid the bleakest chapters of our lives.

We are actors and historians, living and recounting our stories. Let’s live them well, and let’s tell them accurately to our hearts and the generations that will follow us.