Day 19: Work on the Story

Why do we not have something like this memorized to share with others?  What if we really spent time preparing and thinking through the story?  It would cause us to think through more clearly why we believe what we do.  In the community I am in it is very religious.  I grew up with people all around me who all thought similarly.  A few years back God challenged me to share my faith with others.  As I did that I ran into different people.  I remember sitting down with a salesman for lunch and I prayed before my meal quietly and after I was done he asked me “What are you catholic?”  That started a conversation where he said he was a universalist.  I asked many questions and he asked what do I believe.  I stuttered a bit and said I believe in Jesus and couldn’t get out more than that.  This lead me to really searching what I really believed and diving in the word more. Our conversations continued from there and we are still great friends.  As he has asked questions it has helped refine my faith tremendously.
I have went through the Story of God by SOMA and the Story of God for Kids by them as well with my boys.  These have helped me greatly.  So many times we see the stories of the bible as just stories.  We don’t see them connected together to form “The Story.”  What if we spent as much time preparing our testimony and the story of the bible as much as we spent watching TV, going on the internet, washing our cars, or any other things.  As I was mowing my lawn tonight I saw many regrets I have made in not taking care of my yard as well as I could have.  Should I have those same feelings toward some of the things I have not done in my spiritual life?  The reason we have regrets about our yard and house is we can see them.  We don’t have regrets in our spiritual life because the deficiencies don’t pop up until trouble or an opportunity to witness comes up.  Let’s take as much time preparing for the spiritual as we do the physical.  We might have some more trees and plants that die in our yard but hopefully we can help point some people to Christ with the time saved.