Everyone has a story. Your life is the
story you’ve lived. But there’s more going on in your story than
you may recognize. There are three stories fighting for space in your
life. You have the story you’ve lived, the story you tell yourself
and the story God’s designed for you. God’s story has the story
you’ve lived already factored into His story. But what about the
story in your head competing for story space?
You
have been affected for better or worse by the story you have lived.
But the story you tell yourself affects the story you’ve lived and
may be limiting how well you live the story God has written for you.
I feel no need to delve into your past right now; God is the healer
of our pasts. My question for you is this: what is the story you tell
yourself? What do you say about you? What do you say about your life?
What is it you believe about the reality of your life?
Here’s
a simplistic example. For a significant period of time I was
unusually tired. I repeatedly said to myself and others, “I am so
tired.” One day I began to wonder what would happen if I just
stopped telling myself, “I am so tired.” Would I be so tired? You
guessed it. Over time I was not so tired. I was tired at times but
not day in and day out. Telling myself and others over and over how
tired I was made it more real and it became my story.
In
our over-stimulating, social media driven world many of us are
telling ourselves we don’t measure up. Measuring up involves
updated decorations, a new house, a successful book, a million likes
(OK that may be an exaggeration), trips around the world, or
anything, big or small, that’s different (and presumably better)
than the life we have right now.
The
stories most of us tell ourselves are false narratives and some of us
are telling ourselves detrimental stories. Do you find your false
narrative in the following lies?
- I can’t celebrate Christmas without drinking. Everybody is drinking and having fun. I won’t have fun if I don’t drink.
- I am such a loser; my family has problems. All my friends on social media are so happy. They do things together all the time. I am too busy surviving work and managing home to make time for fun.
- I cannot thrive in this job. Nobody talks to me. The boss expects perfection and I will never be able to get it right.
- Life is just too much for me. I am not wired to handle raising kids, running a house, and going back to school. I just don’t have the stamina some people do.
- I don’t have any choices in my life. I always have to take care of everyone in my life and no one is every happy with me. I don’t even know who I am anymore.
- I have to be the best, nothing else will do.
Recognize
yourself in any of these? When I think of these false narratives, as
well as the ones I tell myself, there are a few threads (in my husband's words) of stinkin’
thinkin’ woven throughout each. These stories rattle around in our
brains convincing us we are helpless and other people have it all
figured out. We become victims of our thinking while we think we are
victims of life.
These
false narrative statements are full of never, can’t, everybody,
all, nobody, I am not, I have not, I must, etc. I want to leave you
with a challenge to pay attention to the stories you tell yourself.
Write down what you have come to believe about yourself, God, and
others as a result of what you tell yourself about you and your life.
Next time we will begin challenging these types of stories with the
truth – God’s story for you.
While
paying more attention to your thinking, mull over these words written
by Jacques Philippe in his book, Interior Freedom.
“One
of the most essential conditions for God’s grace to act in our
lives is saying yes to what we are and to the situations in which we
find ourselves. That is because God is ‘realistic.’ His grace
does not operate on our imaginings, ideals, or dreams. It works on
reality, the specific, concrete elements of our lives.”
