We all live and die with OUR STORY which is drawn from within the myriad of generic collective stories. Put bluntly, we are REMOTELY CONTROLLED. For many years “my story” was constructed out of the Fundamentalist Bible Belt story. It was the only story there was- or so I thought!
“Stick to your story and you’re stuck with it” says Swami Beyondananda.
Of course since no one, or few, have herd of “Swami whatever” (above) then whatever he has or had to say is unimportant. And that’s one part of OUR STORY! If we’ve not heard of it, if we’ve not been taught it, if we’ve not embraced it as OUR STORY, then it’s evidently not true.
Bruce Lipton gets very practical in his analysis when he writes, “We build our lives on the foundation of our stories. And the more we invest in the story, the more important it becomes to continue investing in that story, even after it is clear the story no longer works.” That’s hard for anyone to admit. However, there usually comes a time when a trauma or catastrophe forces us to look reality in the face.
But, why wait until that happens?
We’re creatures of habit and thus we continue on BELIEVING and DOING the same thing while scratching our heads and wondering why nothing new is happening. When’s the last time you sat down and wrote a brief (half page) bio on your life? What’s that synopsis tell you? It tells you YOUR STORY. How’s that working out for you Phil?
And did you know that YOUR STORY is just a chapter in THE STORY of the God that you have created, embraced, and invested in. And your ROI (return on investment) is what?
So many within the church also fail to embrace their stories, and the subsequent results are often similar to those situations in which over-identification with the story occurs. For me, I’m learning to enjoy the story–realizing that I AM the resurrection and the life of the story itself.