My Story, Your Story, and God's Story

In our increasingly scientific and technologically advanced world, it's easy for us to lose the notion of unseen forces moving beyond our midst. We tend to measure things by what we can see around us. If we don't experience it in our own lives and communities, we tend to believe it's not going on. 

The same holds true when it comes to our faith. If we don't see and experience a move of God in our midst, we assume He is not moving elsewhere (even though He is constantly moving all around us). 

There are incredible stories happening in Christianity all over the world today. They often do not make national news, but they are happening, and we would be greatly encouraged if we knew of them. We are part of a much bigger movement: a great movement of God that depends on our role in it. 

Most of the believers I've met at churches across the country are unaware of how Christianity is flourishing around the world-and even down the street from where they live. They perceive the status of the global Christian faith through the microscopic lens of their local church, churches they may have heard of in their city, or what little they know of their denomination. This lack of knowledge and understanding of God's constant activity can lead to many problems in a believer's life-not just an unawareness of what God is doing, but a lack of understanding about our place in a much bigger story.

Whenever I've shared even a handful of stories with the hundreds of churches I've spoken for, believers are visibly encouraged by any crumb I give them in this wider perspective on the Christian world. 

In an effort to encourage believers to look around them and see how God is moving, I want to call our attention to three things:  

The first is to Live Awake. I want to call us to live awakened to the undercurrents of how God is moving today. We all hope to live awake in our lives. We all have a fear of missing out. It's why we set reminders in our phones, so we don't miss a meeting or a game. But more importantly, we should fear missing out on what God is doing, and this can easily be the case if we don't make his kingdom and purposes a priority in our lives. 

I want to invite us into God's bigger story. I want us to see that we are already part of something God is doing that is so much bigger than we are individually. As we see what God is capable of, I want to call us to greater things he has in store. There is more for us, but we need to be awakened to it. 

The second is to Live Inspired. We all want to live for something that takes us beyond ourselves that will matter eternally. In order to discover our own purpose, we need to hear about God moving in other people's purposes. When we hear what God has done with others, it inspires us and expands our hearts with greater faith, vision, and purpose.

We are missing out on not just the body of Christ globally but also on how these stories of God moving could affect us personally if we don't take time to listen to them. I am what I am today because of countless God stories I have heard and experienced, and my life has taken a different route because of them. 

These testimonies can be a source of bottomless inspiration for us if we take time to listen.

The third is to Live Influential. Carl F. Henry said, "The early Christians did not exclaim, 'What has the world come to?' Rather they proclaimed, 'Look what has come to the world!'" 

We lose influence when we spend all our time preaching against the bad in culture. We gain influence when we preach the good we have in Christ. No one really wants to hear about the religious differences or denominational feuds taking place in our churches today. 

Christians are steadily losing influence in American culture, and I believe it is because we've become too busy preaching against things. We are too quick to point out when everyone else is making wrong choices or doing things we don't agree with. If we get back to the goodness, hope, joy, and love in the gospel, and how God is using his gospel in the lives of people all around us, we will retrieve a powerful antidote for the deepest needs of our culture. 

I want us to open our eyes to "what has come to the world" in Christ and His greater story in His church. I want us to get lost in our own smallness and insignificance in the great movements of God all over the world. 

I believe that in this feeling of our own insignificance, we will actually lay hold of a greater sense of significance than we've ever known. But it will be based on God's greater story, and bigger purpose, and not on our own story.

Matt Brown is an evangelist, author of Awakening: How God's Next Great Move Inspires and Influences Our Lives Today (2015, Leafwood), and founder of Think Eternity. He and his wife Michelle are impacting thousands of people with the gospel each year through live events and online. They also minister to more than 400,000 followers on social media daily.

Matt Brown

Matt Brown is an evangelist, author of Truth Plus Love, host of Think Eternity with Matt Brown, and founder of Think Eternity — a ministry sharing powerful faith content through podcasts, blogs, videos, outreaches and more. You can follow Matt at @evangelistmatt.