One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--Ministry YearsSample

Stories: The One who knows yours   

What made Jesus such a masterful teacher was He helped people connect with God in a way they weren’t used to. Usually religious talk is so filled with complicated rhetoric and theological terms that, to be honest, we look the other way. Life is   complicated enough, you know? 

But Jesus taught, formally and in everyday chats, by telling stories—unremarkable happenings that usually make us smile . . . then pause, and then later laugh out loud when we realize the little “truth-bomb” He’s set off in our hearts. The next day when we’re still thinking about His story, we realize He’s taught us theology after all. 

“Parables” is what those common stories are called in the Gospels and Luke tells the most, 40 or so. Parable literally means “thrown alongside something,” just the way   Jesus threw in these stories alongside His conversations. They’re about the things we talk and text about today—work, friends, family, about what happens on trips, about how our gardens grow, our search for something we lost and the joy when it’s   found. Jesus’ stories don’t usually tell us something new, but they get us to notice what’s been there all along. They’re like a magnifying glass that focuses our attention on something God is up to. 

Using a story to convey what life in God looks like is a tricky way to speak about holy things. But when you can connect all that you know and don’t know about yourself to all that you know and don’t know about God, it works. Sometimes the lesson speaks for itself, sometimes Jesus explains it. Sometimes the lessons are only clear to those whose hearts are open to learn about real life in God.  

Parables are a slow drip into your soul that convinces you God really is engaged with you today—in your trip to Walmart and walking the dog and that hard thing between you and your sister. In His parables, Jesus confirms our far-off hope that He is moving closer to us, taking us somewhere in our hearts. 

So when you think about Jesus’ parables and read them for yourself (start in Luke 8), picture your own stories when you discover what life in God is like. Ask God to show you the truth about yourself that you don’t mind Him working on. It’s in those cracks that grace shines through and you see it and so do others. In the end, our stories are more the same than they are different and God’s behind every one of them—in the everyday ones as much as the majestic ones. 

Because, as Jesus taught us, He’s just as proud of the artful way He’s writing your story as He is proud of the birds on your window sill and the Great Coral Reef and the way the stars spin through space. 

Tomorrow: One on one with Jesus who gives your life back