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Week #2 Story and “Narrative Shifts”
To live with confidence in God, trusting His advice on how to live, you need to know His goodness through firsthand experience. No one can live by someone else’s faith.
A scene from The Horse and His Boy, one of C.S. Lewis's children's stories, provides a picture of story transformation. The lead character, a boy named Shasta, who has had a difficult childhood, reaches a point of despair in his journey. In a dark, cold mist, he cries,
“I do think,” said Shasta, “that I must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world. Everything goes right for everyone except me.”
And being very tired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks. A few seconds later, in the pitch dark, Shasta hears breathing. The creature walks beside Shasta and eventually says, “Tell me your sorrows.”
After Shasta vents a lifetime of sorrows, the creature weeps with the boy and eventually says, “I do not consider you unfortunate.”
The creature, who turns out to be Aslan the Lion, the ruler of Narnia, was not harsh or uncompassionate. He helped Shasta see he had misinterpreted certain events, which led to his self-pity story. Shasta thought lions were chasing him with ill intent. But, in reality, Aslan had pursued him to protect and help him. He gave the boy a new story.
To be story-rich is to have a deep awareness of God’s loving presence in your life experience—your story. But distorted, false narratives undercut the larger narrative of God’s goodness shown to you.
There are all kinds of narratives. Family narratives, cultural narratives, and religious narratives.
Our stories determine much of our behavior without regard to their accuracy or helpfulness. These stories stay in our mind largely unchallenged. And here is the main point: these narratives are running (and often ruining) our lives. Smith, James Bryan, The Good and Beautiful God, 25
It is not the fact of being loved unconditionally that is life-changing. It is the risky experience of allowing myself to be loved unconditionally. --David Benner, Surrender to Love, 76
“To experience love, you must receive it in an undefended state. If you can’t open yourself to God, his love is not experienced… --David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself, 25, 27
Isaiah 40:27 “Why do you say, O Jacob, ‘Why way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by the Lord?’”
Jeremiah 2:4,5: “What injustice did your fathers find in Me,
That they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?
Deuteronomy 4:9; Genesis 48:15,16; Psalm 16:7
“Narrative shifts”: Genesis 50:20 (Joseph); Luke 22:31-34, 60-62; John 21:1-17 (Peter)
Luke 15:25-32; 18:9-14; Rev. 3:15-20
What is a story?
Your story is not merely a list of events and achievements, but a constructed and selective interpretation of your lived experience—your lens for looking back and going forward.
We don’t just have life experiences; we have weighted, interpreted experiences. We have filtered perspectives. Our stories are not facts.
Your story has coauthors (families, social groups, bullies, culture, and churches)—not all of whom have been given permission.
Just as every piece of writing has an implied narrator—the person the writer wants you to think he is—every person has a characteristic narrative tone: sassy or sarcastic, ironic or earnest, cheerful or grave. The narrative tone reflects the person’s basic attitude toward the world—is it safe or threatening, welcoming, disappointing, or absurd? A person’s narrative tone often reveals their sense of “self-efficacy,” their overall confidence in their own abilities.
David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (218)
For Discussion Groups
· Take around ten minutes to consider and write down: What are some of the high points, low points, and turning points of your life?
· Talk about your findings together.
For Next Week:
· Does it strike you as self-centered to think deeply about your story? Does it scare you?
· What experiences in your story have you given the most weight?
· Has God uncovered false narratives in your story? Have you ever revised what you thought was your story—a “narrative shift”?
· Who are the most influential coauthors of your story? Are there coauthors of your story that you gave too much influence?
· What is your “narrative tone” (as in the David Brooks quote above)?