When I was 12 years old, a story began circulating around my hometown of Moose Jaw about a group called 鈥淭he Cult.鈥�
This group had apparently sacrificed some cats in some sort of ritual and the rumour was that they were going to do something even worse.聽Soon, 鈥淐ult鈥� graffiti and symbols started appearing all over town.聽It was all we talked about on the playground at school.
One night during that time, I went to a movie with a bunch of guys from school. My assumption was that after the show, we would all walk home together. However, as it turned out, everyone else had something else going on, which meant that I had to walk more than a mile home, at ten o鈥檆lock at night, by myself.
Soon, I started to see the cult everywhere. Every set of headlights was a car full of cult members coming to get me.聽Every group of people on the other side of the street was just waiting to grab me.聽It was the longest walk of my life.
Stories are powerful and we are shaped by what we believe to be true. That is not just true of 12-year-old boys who have to walk home alone, it is true of adults too. When people buy into stories that say things like, 鈥淚f I wasn鈥檛 so stupid, I wouldn鈥檛 make so many mistakes,鈥� or 鈥淢y Dad was right. I am useless,鈥� then we end up living out of the consequences of that thinking.聽
If things are going to get better, we need to start telling ourselves some better stories.聽Here is a good place to start: 鈥淔or God so loved the world [you] that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him鈥� (John 3:16-17).聽
Luke 15 has three good stories about how God rejoices when lost things are found.聽Those are worth telling to ourselves and others.
Once we know the true story about who God is and about who we are, it changes everything.聽As Jesus once said 鈥淵ou will know the truth and the truth will set you free!鈥� (John 8:32).聽
We need to get our story straight.
