A Better Story

     Recently I have been reading a book by Donald Miller entitled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The book is about story and how our lives are a story with many sub-stories within it. It has been one of those God things. It was just right book for me to be reading at this time. Lately I feel like God is really challenging me to grow and become a better pastor and leader to have more compassion for His people and to better inspire people to live their lives for the Kingdom of God. This challenge from God has actually come through the pain and hard times that God has allowed into my life.  Miller makes the comment in his book that, “Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But it’s conflict that changes a person.”
       I have also recently read two books from Peter Scazzero and he also talked about how people only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. There just seems to be something about human nature that prevents us from really changing until God really turns up the heat in our life. Scazzero challenges his readers to not just try and dismiss the pain but to look for God in the pain. Often times when pain comes into our life our first response is to simply beg God to take it away. If the pain gets real bad we may curl up in a ball and suck our thumb and still hope that something will some how change. Miller says, “I didn’t want to get well, because while I could not control my happiness, I could control my misery, and I would rather have control than live in the tension of ‘what if.’ A Chance of hope is no pacifier against sure tragedy.” Miller makes the observation that when we face these really tough challenges we are faced with two options. Keep going even if it feels like we are not making any head way, paddling in place as his story took place in a boat, or quit, slip out of the boat and fall to the ocean floor hoping there is a better and easier story for us down there.  Miller also says that, “people love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joys costs pain.” 
       But so often in doing the tasks involved with the story of our lives we encounter resistance and pain. Miller adds that the more the resistance, the more important our task must be. Then Miller makes this amazing statement, “The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It’s about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle.”  I look around at the leaders and pastors that I really admire and see the hard work and pain it took for them to get there. I didn’t get to see that ‘middle’ part of their story I am only seeing the end. The more I study the lives of these great men of God the more I see just how hard they have worked through the pain of their story. Am I willing to pay the same price?
       The pain of my life right now is one of disappointment. I sure thought I would have seen more people come to Christ by now, I sure thought I would have seen more people healed by now, I sure thought I would have seen more people commit their life to the pursuit of the kingdom by now, I sure thought I would have seen our church grow more by now. For me I know there is no better story waiting on the bottom of the ocean. So I must keep paddling. I must press into what God is wanting to do in me. I also know that I have a role to play in this, I can’t just sit around and wait for God to change me, there is much hard work I must do. I know a pastor who is the most amazing leader, the way he cares for people and inspires them. But years ago he realized that he needed to be a better leader so he read 74 books on leadership in one year. He let God do a lot of changing in him but he also did his own hard work. So for me to become a better pastor and leader I know there is a lot of pain and hard work ahead as well as allowing God to do what He needs to do. What about you? What is the pain and resistance in your life right now? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to have a great story? Miller made the comment that people, especially men, won’t really bond with each other until they have risked their lives together. He was referring to rock climbing and other such dangerous adventures. But I think the same holds true spiritually, if we join together in this journey of writing better stories together then we will be risking our lives together. So who is in – who wants a better story, come join me.