The Gospel According to You

Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote of Frederick Buechner’s book:  “For me The Sacred Journey was not just the interesting story of the maturation of a very talented artist, but also the awesome story of God in the life of an attentive human being.”  The latter part of that statement has stuck with me for years since first reading it:  the “story of God in the life of an attentive human being.”  Religious people talk a great deal about the “story of God” in the Bible as the final word, and thus often fail to see or hear the “awesome story of God” being told in new ways in the lives of other human beings and in the life of this world in which we live.

It is a grave mistake to claim that the “awesome story of God” has been fully revealed in the life of only one man (Jesus) two thousand years ago (end of story), or that the “story of God” was brought to a stop or a conclusion with the Book of Revelations—now bound up in  the binders of a single book.  The story of God will never end for it is continually being revealed in your life and mine—and in the history of our world.  No one man or woman, be it Moses, Isaiah, Deborah, Ruth, Jeremiah, or Jesus; no one book whether it be the Bible, the Koran, or Pilgrim’s Progress, or The Imitation of Christ, can tell the full story—it is still being written, still being told, still unfolding, and always NEW.  We sing “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus, write on my heart every word, tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard,” and miss “the awesome story of God” (perhaps just as precious and just as sweet)  being told and revealed within our journey and those of our  brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, and friends.

George Fox (founder of the Society of Friends) wrote:  "“You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?”  The Bible says this, and Moses says that, and the Apostle Paul says—but what do you say?  What’s your story, what’s the “story of God” being revealed to you in your journey? Rufus Jones said that there really isn’t any Gospel until we write our own—the story of God in our life.  How can we hear  or be attentive to the story of God in our own journey if we’ve closed the book?