God and Hamiltonናሙና

Stories hold a unique power to transform our lives. 

The Los Angeles Lakers basketball team took in a performance of Hamilton after playing a game in New York. I’m sure it was an incredible experience for their team and a huge bummer for everyone sitting in the row behind them. 

Josh Hart, who plays for the Lakers, shared this thought after seeing the performance: “Sometimes when you’re so caught up in your world, you don’t really see other things. So it’s great to see other people in their worlds, take things . . . from Hamilton and bring it back to your world.” 

I love the idea of seeing other people in their worlds and taking truths from their stories back to your world. Isn’t that why stories possess such power? Stories offer us narratives that teach us about life, about God, and about what it means to be truly human. If we open ourselves up, these narratives can transform us, whether they are stories we read in the Scriptures or stories we see performed on a Broadway stage. 

Transforming us into the image of Christ is one of God’s highest desires for our lives. He uses countless means to accomplish this goal, but stories have a unique role in this process. Our awareness of that truth is critical in allowing stories to do their work in us. 

In one church I spoke at, a woman approached me after my sermon and told me that Hamilton saved her life. One particular night, she listened to the soundtrack of Hamilton as she seriously contemplated suicide. When she heard George Washington sing,  “Dying is easy young man, living is harder,” something shifted inside of her. She realized that taking her life would be the easy way out and that the harder path was choosing to live. God used this story to literally save this woman’s life. Such is the power of story.