The Power Of Story

The Power of Story

If the story wasn’t true, you might think it to be a fairy tale. An ancient slave people were under a spell that caused them to forget they were once Children of the Light. When these slaves began to outnumber their masters, a wicked king feared that they might seize his dark realm. So he ordered the slaughter of their baby boys. As dragons of death stalked the dark land, a slave woman hid her newborn son in a basket on a river crawling with baby-eating monsters.

Fire angels watched over that baby, and a princess found him in the river. Though she was the daughter of the wicked king, she was kind and brave. She named him Delivered from Water and adopted him as her little prince. He grew up to be a mighty warrior, and he gained the admiration of the evil king. He led the armies of the dark realm to great victories. Delivered from Water had forgotten that he was a son of the enslaved Children of the Light.

Then one day this adopted prince of the dark realm saw an overseer beating a slave. The evil spell was broken, and he knew that he, too, was a Child of the Light. In anger, he slew the slave master. But darkness prevailed, and he had to flee to the desert.

For forty long years the prince wandered as a herder of sheep. He was eighty years old when the Light appeared as a mysterious fire in a twisted bush on a desert mountain. The Light told the shepherd that it was now time for him to free his people. “I can’t do it!” protested the shepherd. “I’m not qualified—please send someone else.”

The Light responded, “But I will be with you.” He gave the old shepherd the supernatural power to turn a stick into a snake. “This is only the beginning of what I will do through you!” he promised. Then he sent him back to the dark realm to confront the evil king and set free the enslaved Children of the Light.

By now you are thinking that this is no fairy tale but a story from Sunday school. It appears in the Jewish Torah and the pages of the Christian Old Testament. It is the true story of Moses, whose name literally means “delivered from water.” The delivered one went on to deliver God’s people. All fairy tales—and every other story, including yours—are really reflections of a redemptive narrative that makes up the greatest story ever told. God has written your story too. Your personal history is really his story. Yours is very special and indispensable to his bigger story because he took the time to write it just for you. So go out and live another chapter, always remembering this:

No one loves a good story more than God. That’s why he wrote yours.

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!

Psalm 139:16-17