Why Story?

Photo Credit: Jer Kunz via Compfight cc

I have never met a person who doesn’t love a good story. Never. Not even once.

Sure, some people would rather read their stories, some would rather watch them on a TV and some just want to hear the story of what their friend did yesterday. But we all have a deep love for stories, always have and always will, as far as I can tell.

And that’s why I’m writing this blog. Because ever since I can remember, I’ve needed stories as much as I’ve needed anything else. They’ve even impacted my health, mentally and physically. And I want to know why. So I’m writing to explore what I’ve already discovered- we need stories because we’re part of one.

The thing is, I believe that stories brush against the core of our existence. We live in a story- the story of this world, this universe, this galaxy and whatever’s beyond that. And the characters of this story? Us.

If you’ve ever talked to a writer of any sort, they’ve probably lamented about story characters at some point. Because even when you have created a character, have breathed life into this person, given them interests and dislikes and friends and family they still will refuse to do what you want. They won’t do what will have the best results for the story. Sound familiar?

We’re those characters. We’re the characters that will not cooperate with our author and creator. And if we were left to ourselves, the end of our story would be a tragedy.

That’s the miracle. The author has written himself into our story. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The Word, the first Word in the universe, the oldest, most powerful author and creator, wrote himself into his own story so that his rebellious, stubborn characters would change. He came into our epic as not only our Creator, but as our Author and the perfector of our faith. He entered our story so that when we would not cooperate with him he could change us into something far beyond what we realize and write a story far more beautiful and action-packed than any we have ever read/ watched.

This is why we need stories so much- they are part of who we are as humans. Sure, we might be able to survive physically without them, but that would be like trying to live without fruit- far less tasty and much less healthy. We are built to love stories. And by loving stories, the really good stories, the ones that have that grain of truth nestled somewhere in them, we get glimpses of not only who we are, but who God is, who Christ is and who we are in them.

This is what is beautiful about stories and this is why I write.