Embracing Our Stories: Finding God in Frustration

"I I wrote a few notes down just so I don't forget anything but I have loved this series and honestly especially the phrase nobody gets the story they want because I think deep inside of us we're wired to get the story we want and so that Gap I think really helps us um find God and really dig deep to say if I don't get the story I want is there still meaning and purpose there um so a couple of thoughts that I had the first one was," [00:00:57]

"um you have your whole life long to figure out your story your story is not static it's quite Dynamic and I think for me looking back in the rearview mirror I tend to learn more about my story when I pause and reflect and look in the rearview mirror rather than in the moment sometimes it's not as clear yeah so I think for me when I was a little girl I was an only child and my mom and dad both worked so many good things about my family growing up in my story my dad had such a love of outdoors and bred that in me my mom worked and was just a delightful social person but especially for a few years in my early years maybe from the time I was 3 till 8 and then maybe less so but still going on there was a fair amount of fighting in our house going on and um it was at at one point for me pretty terrifying I would um sometimes when they would fight I would run between them to try to get them to stop fighting and if that didn't work I'd run back into the den and turn the TV up louder and if they were still fighting I'd leave and try to get them to stop again and then not infrequently when um when the fighting escalated to the point of utter frustration one of them would leave and they would get in the car and go and the other one might go to bed and as a little girl I would sometimes crawl up on the kitchen counter I can still feel the way that the tile on the kitchen felt on my shins and I would peer out through the curtains and watch and wait for whoever left to to come home and then when they would pull in the driveway I would see the lights and I would run back in bed and pretend to be asleep and um it was a it was tough and I would often spend time when I would go over to friend's house and look around like my eyes would Dart around taking it all in and comparing and realizing uh not all my friends parents fought like that and there were a couple of parents who who fought worse but when I was a little girl it was so terrifying as I got older it was uh anger producing and frustrating and caused some tension as I tried to work all that what that all meant out in my life with my mom and me and had to do a lot of work on that and then the older I've gotten been able to put it in the right place to understand uh they were going through things I certainly couldn't fully understand and uh my experience of those years was only a small piece of the whole story so I think spending spending your whole life long integrating things into your story retelling the story and rethinking what it meant yeah I was thinking when you were talking about we don't get this nobody gets the stories they want and that is somehow supposed to kind of point us towards God yeah there's that passage in Roman 8 where Paul talks about for the creation was subjected to frustration yeah not by its own choice but by the one that sub that subjected it that is God in the hopes that it could be liberated from its bondage to Decay that somehow uh actually being willing to live in the pain and frustration of not getting the story that I want can everybody say oh there is no story in this world there is no marriage you know I I think about what each of our children might say today or at some point about pain points in their story when they were grown up there is no family there is no job um there is no body that's going to bring the Fulfillment that we're all hoping to get and and that idea that somehow there's even something hopeful in that that that frustration can push me to keep looking and keep looking and I think that you've done that I think in ways that were really kind of remarkable to me because I don't think I did that nearly as much as a young adult as you did at caused you to go on a quest for what's a greater story and perhaps it's some level uh can make us more compassionate toward towards the broken pieces of other people stor you know and find um find Common Ground there uh another thing I'm not sure exactly how to put this but Andy Crouch was out uh a couple of years ago working with some of our leaders here in the Bay Area and he talked about going through difficult times and how um what God gives you what he promises is his presence and we were in the middle of probably the toughest part of our life and I just remember muttering under my breath to myself no one in particular it's not enough it's not enough it's not what I'm looking for not looking for presence I'm looking for power I'm looking for somebody to fix it wow yeah and certainly when I think of God I certainly think of somebody who is capable of fixing things and um what I've done with that in my story especially in the last couple years but even throughout my whole life is I think there's a point for a really important place in our stories for wrestling with God I think to just mindlessly and chirpily accept things like that uh does us no service and keeps us living on the surface with God I think I've said this before but when I preached on the book of Psalms one time mathematically um there are more Psalms of lament than there are psalms of praise and I wonder sometimes if that means that the way to genuine praise is through lament and then being able to over time absorb the story of Jesus going to the Cross where that's all he got was The Presence he didn't get the power to change it but I think to be able to argue with God to be able to wrestle with God to be able to not accept things quickly and take time until it percolates down into my soul instead of just on my skin makes my story more powerful yeah um remember when I was in school there was a a teacher Jack Rogers he would often quote Calvin as saying when God speaks to us God lisps and I think about that sometimes that's what you do with a baby because that's how baby talks that all of us when we think of God talking or we say I imagine God saying something it always sounds like us and so true um I think for you uh God never sounds syrupy sentimental um there'll just be this feisty raw uh and you meet God there and I think um that challenges me and a lot of people when they hear you and they think oh it's okay for me to get Scrappy with God and uh to think of God getting back that way with me um because each of us has to find our own language and a way to bring our own story into God yeah and certainly you know reading Genesis through Revelation there are just so many stories like that and then I think the last thing I would say um if we understand our stories or as we understand them that the narrowness of our stories is what allows for wide life and what do you mean by that well uh I think you know Arthur Miller wrote a book called um why you can't be anything you want to be which I just thought was a brilliant title you don't even need to read the book but we keep Sor book um we keep feeding our kids and ourselves with this belief the truth is we have a very narrow range in our DNA we're sort of presetting our personality and it informs how we should live our lives and how we meet God um I took my mom M who just moved up to uh an independent living facility in Santa Barbara last week 93 years old and a couple of weeks ago we went back to the house where I lived my whole life and um was fun to see the people that live there we went through the house and then we drove through the neighborhood and I I saw this place where I used to ride my bike and when I was 8 years old I remember being on my bike alone and being absolutely giddy that nobody knew where I was and last month when I went back there I think I was three blocks from home it was so much closer than I remember we used to have a place across the street from our house about 30 Acres of eucalyptus trees called the jungle and all the kids would say hey let's meet in the jungle and we'll play all day and just looking back at who God made me to be and that need for Independence that need for adventure um somebody showed us recently an app where you can get it for everybody in the family and that everybody knows where everybody is and you were thrown up in your mouth a little bit when you saw it it's like it's the last thing you want do not use that app people need freedom but just to say how will God meet me and who he made me to be it's so easy I think for all of us but for me to look at other people's stories and wish I had theirs and of course when I look at 15 different people I only pick the best parts of their stories um in another but instead to settle into my story and to find God's presence there and purpose that wonderful statement of Dallas Willard where he says God has yet to bless anybody except where they actually are and if we keep throwing away situation after situation as not being right we will simply have no place for him to enter our lives our dogs are growling and barking so we probably never go I guess that's our story that's right too bad cuz we had some other really profound things profound but uh whatever your story is today just Embrace Your Story embrace your dog make it great find God in your story hey if you enjoyed that video be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss any future teachings from John orberg here at become new my name is Tim and I'm a part of the team here this series is all about stories everybody has a story and everybody's story matters and we want to know about your story whether it's a story of coming to Faith or a story of spiritual growth whatever it is we're here for you you can email that to us at connect becom new.com or you can text it to us you can also sign up for daily reminders whenever we drop a new video via text by texting the word become to the number 8558848401 to watch this is really a community to belong to and we're so glad that you're a part of it we'll catch you next time" [00:01:26]