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A Good Story - The Heart of GGFG
By Hillary-Beth
Sorting
through an old box of papers, I found notes from an English class in
highschool. Most of the notes were useless - my practicing matching
questions for the test, random words and definitions that any dictionary
could provide me later on, terms of poetry that I never understood, or
the names of assignments for the day. One thing caught my eye.
There
was a section that discussed what makes up a good story. I tried to
explain this to many of my closer friends, not knowing exactly when the
though originated. I knew that it was before I was a huge PluggedIn
reader, where movies and other media are discussed - I recalled knowing
what I thought was a good movie long before that.
According to my highschool class:
In a good story, the characters' actions have moral consequences; no one "gets away with murder," so to speak.
In
a good story, evil is condemned and good is approved, which is found in
direct and indirect ways; the tone itself may be as much as a clue as
if good is rewarded, and evil is punished.
Also,
a good story is neither cynical (where nothing goes right) or overly
and purely sentimental (nothing goes truly wrong). A good story balanced
realistically. That is, goodness is possible, but bad also. The
struggle between the two is what makes a story, if you think about it,
and it feels unsatisfactory if the good guys don't win, and the bad guys
aren't punished.
Which
brings me to my last point, which really was a PluggedIn truth - in a
good story, there are distinct good guys and bad guys by the end of the
story. And a good guy who does bad things and isn't punished, just
doesn't satisfy. Not that good guys don't do bad things in some stories,
but just that if they do bad things and are either praised for them, or
don't get punished for them. See, there's good, and there's bad, and
the two can't be a part of each other.
Luke 11:36
Therefore,
if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be
completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you."
And I know this is a little out of context, but I think it fits -
2 Corinthians 6:14
For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
What's So Impressive About That?
By Hillary-Beth Koenig
I had a conversation last semester that inspired me.
A
girl shared a story about what God had done in her life, and I
commented on how impressive that was. She was like, What's so impressive
about that?
It got me thinking...
sometimes, we don't recognize His work for as awesome as it is. Or celebrate it enough. Or thank Him enough.
See, she had shared her favorite verse, because I randomly sent out a verse as a text for an encouragement. Her verse was:
Romans 14:8
If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
She
started to share her story, but first she said, This story..."it's not a
good one." At that, I couldn't help but mention Romans 8:8-9, which
tells us how God sues all things for his good, to make us more like
Christ.
Some pretty bad things had happened, things that caused
her to wonder where she belonged. But God taught her that even if she
didn't belong anywhere on earth she belonged to him, and that's all that
mattered.
It's amazing the way God gets our attention, and speaks truth to us in hard moments.
The Bigger Story
By Hillary-Beth Koenig
Our lives aren't stories about ourselves.
We
love to tell about ourselves. Freewebs, Facebook, Blogs, Myspace, and
other sites enable us to share freely anything we want to say about us.
Some of these sites encourage us to focus solely on ourselves; my
favorite color, favorite flavor, the way I like to listen to music or
watch TV, or even not as trivial things like my school courses and my
jobs or my ministries and my favorite Bible study. Does there come a
point that I start to believe that life is all about my story to the
world?
As
Christians we should realize there's a bigger story going on. And
honestly, I don't have to be a part of it in order for the plot to carry
through!
God is
called the author; author of our faith, our hope, our salvation. Taking
this analogy, when we tell our story, our theme should be that of God’s
work in our life; our personal and very precious salvation and new life
through Christ.
Hebrews 12:2
Let
us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
God
is the hero of the story; Jesus. Jesus knew the law required a perfect
sacrifice or else we could not come to be God’s children, so Jesus
willingly died on the cross for the sins of the world. Because he was
God, he rose again, to give us eternal life!
Our
story should be focused on the hero. It doesn't mean we are
unimportant; it doesn't mean we don't have cool things going on. It does
mean there's more that we can't see, that we need to trust and thank
God with our hearts set sure on the last chapter of our known history.
God
was working ever since man fell in order to restore all creation. It
hasn't happened completely yet of course. What has happened is Jesus has
made it possible for us to start being restored. Not only will we be
restored, but the book of Revelation and other prophetic books promise
that there will be a new earth and a new heaven; everything created will
be made pure again. That is something great to look forward to!
Sometimes
it’s so hard to not get caught up in just our own story. Next time you
are telling about yourself, try to stop and think: what is the theme of
my story? Just celebrating myself, or celebrating how God has worked in
me? You might want to take a little time to prepare, so that you know
what you will say about who you are – a very awesomely made Child of
God, with a very awesome story to tell!
Tell us your story! godlygirls@yahoo.com
