TELL ME THE STORIES OF JESUS

There is something delicious about a story.  It feeds the heart and soul, and has an aura of intimacy about it.  When my family gathers together for special occasions us always bring out the stories of past adventures and escapades; most of them were unknown to my parents which brought a sort of shock and awe to my mother’s face.  I grew up hearing about the lives of my ancestors, always enveloped in a lovely story.  After hearing these stories many times, I felt like I knew these people I had never met, but whose blood ran through my veins.  Stories brought an intimacy to the relationship than just the usual facts of the year they were born and the year they died that we saw on their tombstones.

When I first fell in love with someone we would sit for hours and tell each other the stories of our lives.  We wanted to know everything we could about our childhood, our families, our hope and dreams, all of the experiences that made us who we were.  Stories brought an intimacy to the relationship that increased our knowledge of one another, increased our trust of one another, and increased our love for one another.

Stories put flesh and blood around the facts and make them alive.  My heart is touched and I can feel the impact of the facts and details, not just store them away as information in my mind.  I know on a different level, beyond the words and straight into my soul.  There is a true communion, not mere communication; there is an intimacy, not mere introduction.  I truly and wholly know.

I love to read the Bible.  I was raised in a family where church and Sunday school were a part of our lives.  We moved around quite a bit but we always found a church to be a part of.  In Sunday school I heard all the stories about the people in the Bible and enjoyed getting to know these heroes and saints of old.  Most important I loved hearing the stories about Jesus, how much he loved children, like me, and how caring he was to everyone he met.  He would touch them and be healed.  He did things like calm an angry ocean, make five loaves of bread and two fish enough to feed five thousand people, he liked spending time with his disciples, his friends, and of course he died and came back to life.  I loved these stories and believed all of them to be true; I still do.  After a few years of Bible College and three years in Seminary, where the Bible was more of a text book to be dissected, analyzed, and studied, I still think the stories of the people in the Bible still mean the most to me, now as an adult.  They minister most to my heart and soul.  Dissecting, analyzing, and studying certainly have their place; but it’s still the simple stories I love and grow the most from; especially the close encounters the people have with Jesus.