Every Christian Has the Same Story
By Michael Kelley
The novelist Kurt Vonnegut who is best known for his work, Slaughterhouse-Five, argued that there are only a few basic stories that are common to all mankind. Those basic stories include the “Man in Hole” story in which a character gets into trouble and then gets out again. There’s also the “Boy Meets Girl” story. It doesn’t have to be about a literal girl; in this type of story, the protagonist finds something wonderful, loses it, and then gets it back forever. Then there’s the “Which Way is Up?” story which has so many ups and downs that the audience is left what the hero’s ultimate fate or status actually is. And of course there’s the “Cinderella Story” in which there’s a steady rise from a low point, followed by a sudden drop, and then ending in an infinite high. Vonnegut’s point is not that every story is the same; it’s that though the details vary, the basic pattern is consistent.
Every Christian has the same story. That’s not true, you might argue. We all come from different places. We all have different degrees of religious backgrounds. You may have come to follow Jesus when you were in college because a roommate gave you a book to read. Or you may have had a neighbor who invited you to a Bible study. Or you may have started following Jesus because you went to Vacation Bible School and heard the gospel explained for the first time. So every Christian has a different story - except we don’t. At least not at the base level. One of the places we find that common story expressed is in Colossians 1:21-23:
Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.
That’s not just the Colossians story; it’s ours as well. We all had a “once” - a time before Christ. Then we all had a “but” when God intervened with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now we are continuing on, remaining in the faith. That’s our story.
Now why is it important you remember your Christian story? At least three reasons:
1. Remembering your Christian story grounds you.
The further we get away from our lives before Christ the most we are prone to forget our lives before Christ. And we should not. That’s not so that we can keep reliving all of our sin though - it’s so that we remember that we didn’t work ourselves out of our sin; it was only through God’s intervention on our behalf. So when we remember our stories, we are grounded. We don’t get above ourselves. But we are also grounded in the gospel. We remember what Jesus has done on our behalf.
2. Remembering your Christian story also guards you.
It not only guards you from pride, it guards you from drift. And we need to be guarded. There will always be things in our lives that will tempt us to drift from the good news of Jesus Christ - it might be a new teaching, it might be the things of this world, it might be the craving for the praise of men - whatever it is, our hearts are prone to wander. Remembering our stories helps guard us from that wandering.
3. Finally, remembering your Christian story helps you go.
Remember, this is not just your story; it’s all our story. And there are people all around us that are at different places in this story. When we remember our story, we are empowered to go and share the gospel. And when we do, we will encounter all different kinds of people, but at the same time, those people are just like us. They may still be at “once;” but when we share the gospel with them, they can move on. They can move from alienation to reconciliation. This is our story, and it can be theirs - We were once alienated. But now we are reconciled. If we continue to stand firm in the faith.
Michael Kelley is a husband, father of three, author, and speaker from Nashville, TN. His latest book is a year-long family devotional guide called The Whole Story for the Whole Family. Find his personal blog at michaelkelley.co.
