These are Our Stories
by Ramsey Wynne
I grew up in the church, so I have always been familiar with a lot of the stories in the Bible, especially the iconic or recognizable ones of the Old Testament. For a long time, I struggled to see how these stories could relate to my life in more than a general “good lesson” of faith or patience. At times the events in the stories are so extreme, at first glance they don’t seem to be applicable to my life at all. It wasn’t until later in life that I began to see how these stories were glimpses and allusions to the greater story the Bible is telling, the Gospel.
One of the clearest ways we can connect to these events from the Old Testament is to consider the hearts and the failures of all of these people, both the “good” and “bad”, and see ourselves in some shape or form in all of them. Like them, we don’t believe, we take things into our own hands, we doubt God, and we are prideful. Within these stories, we also continually see God’s provision and faithfulness to His people even in the midst of their sin.
A pitfall I fell into and others do as well is thinking that the Old Testament is just that, it’s old. The people are old and dead, thus the stories feel like that. They feel like “stories”. They feel stale. Particularly if you are familiar with them. This causes us to simply put off the Old Testament as something that has good “lessons” in it but that doesn’t necessarily relate to our life in this exact moment.
The truth is these stories are our stories. These sins are our sins. The things these people are doing are the things we do. In a lot of these stories, the actual outcomes of their actions seem like something atrocious in society today and something that a normal person with a full-time job, a spouse, kids, friends, family, etc. just wouldn’t do. It would be the end of life as you know it to go to a neighboring city and commit countless murders because your household was wronged. This seems to be an unimaginable action for the average person.
The truth is, our hearts are sometimes in the exact same place as these people we read about in the Old Testament. Our hearts come from the same place of depravity. We doubt God, we run from him, we attempt to solve things our own way, and we pridefully try to take control of our own situations.
But these stories also cause us to praise God, because just as he was present in these occurrences we read about in the Old Testament, he is present today. He is unchanging. He still loves us, he is jealous for our attention, He wants to care of us, and provide for us. Ultimately, He gave up his son to come down to earth and die on the cross, so that we can be seen as righteous before God. So that we don’t have to endure the punishment that we deserve for our wicked hearts. He blessed us with the Holy Spirit to restore our hearts. To convict us of our sin, to mold us into the image of Jesus, to call us out of our depravity. Just like he continuously restored and rescued those in the Old Testament, he has rescued us.
In each of our stories of unbelief and failure, there is a God who provides, restores, disciplines, loves, and offers grace despite our sin. Correlate your stories with these stories in the Old Testament and proclaim the goodness of God that he’s poured out on you through Jesus and the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Proclaim His glory and greatness to spur on your love for Jesus and those around you.