Unveiling Hidden Stories: The Power of Connection

I grew up in Rockford Illinois my dad's family was Swedish Rockford was kind of a Swedish Town my grandfather Albin was in his mid-40s by the time my dad was born so he was quite old by the time I got to know him he was kind of a Gruff character um swets tend to be not real emotionally expressive anyway I don't think my dad ever heard his father say I love you to my grandmother or to my dad um when he wanted to be close with us and we were little kids the way that he would do that is he would pull us to himself and then rub our little soft faces against his face and of course that meant touch so that's kind of a good thing but it was whiskers so it hurt it was like sandpaper that's Swedish emotional life come here and I will give you affection and be close to you but it's going to hurt there's going to be a low price to pay and it was a hard thing to get to know him. [00:01:03]

His mom died when Albin was only eight and she was not buried inside the church cemetery and the reason for that this is all on the parish records the reason for that was because she had ingested sulfur and that was either an attempted suicide or uh a kind of a folk attempt at an abortion and either way the church said uh because of that she would not be allowed to be buried within the cemetery ground so my grandfather when he was 8 years old could not go to visit his mom's grave his dad remarried when Albin was 14 remarried the wife the sister of his first wife and she turned out to have very severe uh emotional health issues. [00:02:56]

As a 14-year-old boy my grandfather had l lost his mom and had lost his dad and was being raised by an insane stepmother who did not want him there and all of that would have broken wounded his heart so deeply but we did not know his story my dad did not know that story and when I think about what my grandfather had to deal with and how much better he did as a dad and a person that what it was that he was received it's really quite heroic but because I didn't know his story I didn't know everybody has a story everybody that you and I walk past those faces we often assume in a sense they're just bit characters in my story. [00:04:28]

Elizabeth stump uh writes about this in her book wandering in darkness when she's talking about job and it's a profound Glimpse at what a great God God is and what's actually going on in our world she writes about how in the beginning of the book if you've read it it talks about God's interaction with Satan and actually she writes about how God cares about Satan when he asks them where have you been it's an invitation for Satan to consider God loves all of his creatures including the Satan God cannot love and so if you read that you know part of what's going on is God uses job as an attempt to teach Satan there is such a thing as um loyalty and and faithfulness and goodness and Covenant Love. [00:05:18]

At first it looks like job is just being used as a pawn in the story of Satan but Elanor stump goes on tucked within the overarching story of God's Satan's relationship with God is the story that's focused on job with regard to that story not considered as a detail in Satan's story which it is but as its own whole story namely the story of job's life which it also is then job is the primary beneficiary of the events that are involved in his suffering that is because the same acts on God's part designed to teach Satan that Satan's cynical view of the world is wrong make job first a cultural ideal and then an Exemplar of human greatness. [00:06:04]

Although on the face of IT job is just an incidental part in the story of Satan's relationships with God nonetheless in the story which is The Narrative of job's life that story God is concerned to deal with job in a way that seeks job's good primarily and aims to draw job closer to God if job stands steadfast in fact in the embedded story focused on job God doesn't simply stand by to see whether or not job will be steadfast rather God intervenes to help job God shows up and talks to job and she notes out it's that way in the the story story after story after story in the Bible they focus on a particular person and so there'll be other people that often look like uh uh supporting actors. [00:06:56]

In every story we are impacting other people we are uh bit actors in their stories we can influence them for good or for ill but then we're all living in our lives and God is using other people in our lives so each of job's children could have been the object of a second story of a separate story where they too are the object of God's love everybody has a story nobody is a pawn and I dare not treat other people as just bit characters in my story sometimes a great athlete will talk about uh lesser athletes on the team as my Supporting Cast but what Elanor stump is talking about is in the Bible there is no such thing as a Supporting Cast we are all part of The Supporting Cast and we are all the objects of a story. [00:08:07]

The ABCs of relationship my wife Nancy will hate this she hates acronyms and alliteration and so too bad ABC A is for ask ask people questions about their story about their life about what they hope for where they're coming from my wife is actually a master at this one I Marvel that often it's the second question you ask somebody a question um how are you doing what are you hoping for what do you see down the road and then you watch how they respond and then you follow up with a question that begins to open the door ask and then ABC is BC be curious just be curious your heart my heart will grow more when we are curious about other people's stories than when we try to get other people to be curious about our stories. [00:09:03]

It is a mysterious and wonderful and Transcendent thought to realize as deep as your own awareness is and as much as your story matters to you so it is with each person and that is because everybody is beloved by God and everybody's story matters to God so today be interested in other people's story and by the way as a result Your Own Story will be enlarged and enbl. [00:09:55]

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 855 888 0444 you can also send us prayer requests there there's a team of us that meet to pray each weekday for viewers just like yourself. [00:10:32]

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