Tell Your Story!

November 23rd, 2020

The most unfortunate thing about telling “your story” is that some people will attempt to keep you there. It is especially sad when this is perpetrated by those who already know your story or that share the same saving grace as you. It doesn’t matter the sphere that the story is shared in, people have a tendency to move you back to that place, even if that place was embarrassing, dark or low. You will know who they are when they constantly refer to your past, in jest, in memory or simply in an attempt to have conversation. It is just pitiful and weak-minded when the only source of conversation is your (negative) past. There is just so much awesome in your present! Don’t let them silence you, tell your story, Unashamed!

They may choose to see you through a former lens. They may even attempt to treat you with the disdain of your past. Perhaps it makes them feel better about themselves. Perhaps it’s an internalized sense of superiority that drives them to that inclination. OR maybe they have not experienced the life giving, mind renewing, value shifting change that comes from meeting the King of kings. Your story was never meant to take you back. It was never meant to hold you down. It has power to inspire hope in others. Don’t let them diminish your dignity. Don’t let them take the air out of the sails of your victory. Don’t let them cause you to silence.

Tell your story, unashamed. Only a hypocrite and a fool would try to mix your transformed present to your unredeemed past (it had to be said). To do such an ugly thing, is to dismiss and undermine the life changing power of saving grace. The moment that Christ saved you, He also forgave you of all of your past faults. You were forgiven. Your errors and shortcomings were forgotten. The power of guilt and shame were defeated! It is true that the past may leave scars, but scars should only remind us of our healing. If scars bring us down, we may be looking at the wrong scars. Look at the scars of Jesus that redeemed us, healed us, forgave us and helps us walk in the newness of this redeemed life! You are a new creation in Christ!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]” (2 Corinthians 5:17 Amplified).

Tell your story! Shout it from the mountain top. Let fools ramble, but your story will change lives. God will use it to change others for the better, just like He did for you. Your story is a weapon. It is an auxiliary. It is a breath of fresh air. It’s okay to share about where you came from and what you have been through, only glory in the Lord that you are not there anymore. You were once bound, but now you are free. You were once blind, but now you see. You were once lost, but now you are found. That’s what God can do. That’s what God does. Let your story be the thing that God uses to inspire life in others; let it be a directional arrow that points to Christ. Let your story be the evidence that the past can’t define us, when Christ has changed our identity and the entire course of our lives!

Don’t let them silence you, tell your story, Unashamed!