Summer Stories

Summer is a great time to share stories. Everybody slows down and, hopefully, takes time to be with family. Sitting around a fire pit in the backyard, the campfire on a camping trip, hanging out with grandparents, or driving in the car on the way to a vacation spot, people love stories. Everyone in a family loves retelling their own stories or reliving memories. How many of us wish we had heard the stories of when our parents and grandparents grew up, what silly things they did, how they got through difficult times, what it was like when they were in high school, during particular times in history, or how the world has changed since they were young? Our family stories connect us in ways that fiction doesn’t. They’re true.

The Bible is a fantastic true story, and within it are many other great stories that are all connected in one or many different ways. Stories are a powerful way to influence, teach, and inspire people. The historical stories the Israelites shared through the centuries bound them together as families and a people, with a great history and a hope for the future. As they shared their stories orally, passing them down from generation to generation, do you think they spoke them as we read Scripture today, in a somewhat dry fashion with a lack of emotion? Russ Ramsey describes God’s story this way in his book, Behold, the Lamb of God (2011):

“It is a story of evil against good, of darkness locked in an epic struggle to snuff out the light forever. It is a tale filled with people in trouble, all living somewhere between wandering and homecoming, between devastation and restoration, between transgression and grace. Every mortal character in the story needs rescue, but they have all turned aside, and together they have become corrupt. After clearing away all the levels of intrigue, conflict, and suspense facing mankind, this story is a story of divine love. It is a story of the one true God calling a people His beloved, though they’ve lived in perpetual rebellion against him.”

This accurate description sounds just as exciting as most of the movies we love to watch, and they’re true! The Bible is the story of a Father who, no matter how rebellious his children are, or what crazy things they do wrong, has promised never to stop loving them. Described this way, this is a story that keeps people’s attention. This is the story we want our kids to know and understand because it changes lives and affects them eternally.

Think about some of the Bible stories and the people God uses as he shows us who he is and teaches us how he is waiting for us to return and trust him again:

• Noah, with we don’t know how many animals, rocking back and forth in the ark while the rain pours down like nobody's ever experienced.
• Moses, in a moment, became a runaway murderer, was beckoned by a burning bush that was never consumed, and was asked by God in the bush to walk back into Egypt and tell the Pharaoh what was what.
• Jacob cheats his brother out of God’s blessing and his uncle out of money and animals, ends up with sister-wives who don’t get along, wrestles with God to get a real blessing, and is chosen to be the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.
• Rachel and Leah are in a great competition to have sons, and are living the soap opera of that time.
• Joshua, whose faith is so strong that he follows what must seem like the craziest instructions ever heard to bring down the city walls of Jericho.
• Deborah, a prophetess and female judge, stood strong with the men who didn’t want to do what she told them God told her to do.

If we could change our perspective just a little bit, we could live in the world today, proud of being counted among all those people of faith. We are in that story as people who wake up every morning to live a life faithful to the God who created us and his Son, who made it possible for us to return to him one day. It was a gift for the Israelites, too, but God's gifts aren't instant, and are not usually given in the way they are expected. There was a lot for them to learn over time about their God first.

The Exodus is only one of the great stories within the greater story of the Bible. Moses leads millions of complaining Israelites out of Egypt, where they were slaves. This is a true story, so when we talk about them, we want to make them and the people in them as real as possible. What if we thought of the story this way?

This is the story of a people in trouble. The 12 tribes of Israel had grown into a group of millions of people who were being mistreated and overworked by the king of Egypt, because he was afraid they would turn against him. The bad treatment kept getting worse and worse. They didn’t know what to do, and didn’t know who could help them. Was there no hope? Yes, there was hope. They remembered the God they could not see and his promise to them and cried out to him in prayer. They didn’t know it, but he would respond in a miraculous way, promising to bring them to a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). God’s rescue plan involved a hero prophet leader who would need faith and courage to do as God asked.

Can millions of people be saved by Moses, one hero prophet leader, and his brother Aaron? Who are they? What challenges will they encounter? Will the people even listen to Moses? Where will he get the faith and courage he needs to fulfill God’s expectations? What if he fails? Can one person successfully lead this many people? Why do they complain so much, and why doesn’t God give up on them? What happens when they come up against an obstacle that a man cannot overcome? And finally, God is not part of the story of Moses, but Moses is part of the story of a God who, out of His great love for them, has a plan to save his people.

As a people who live at a time and in a country where we don’t truly understand the need for deliverance and have a modern definition of freedom, these stories are definitely about other people. It’s hard for us to put ourselves in their place. We can’t possibly understand what life was like for them, but we can understand getting so caught up in ourselves and our desires that we forget about the God who came to save us. We don’t understand why He did what He did, and does what He does. We don’t remember that the people in the Bible didn’t wake up knowing they were going to be in it. We don’t remember that they were not perfect or chosen because they were special in some way. Our stories may not seem as dramatic as theirs, but they are all stories of faith, endurance, succeeding and failing, and trusting in God. Good or bad, when you share what you learned from them, your kids will learn from them, too. Share the faith stories of life, all of them, yours and those in the Bible, for the sake of your children.

Laura Langhoff Arndt is an author and teacher of the faith with an MA in Classroom Instruction, and Director of Christian Education certification in the LCMS. She is the founder of the blog, Carpenter’s Ministry Toolbox.