Our Story

I just finished two amazing, but jam-packed days. I had the chance to attend Catalyst West — a leadership conference hosted by Mariner's Church in Orange County. The conference hit leadership and spiritual development from a number of different sides. It will probably take me days to ponder all that was said and weeks to figure out how to apply it to be the kind of leader — but more importantly the kind of Christ-follower — I want to be.

But one of the big themes, for me, that ran throughout the conference was the idea of story. The speakers I liked best — Donald Miller, Erwin McManus, Andy Stanley and Mark Driscoll — all focused on our story, and figuring out what we do best, and how we can best use that to serve God.

When I was applying to Biola University, we had to write an essay that served as our faith statement. Being a Christian university, Biola wanted to not only know that we were Christians, the school wanted to know why we were Christians and what it meant to us to live out our faith. That was a blind spot for me.

I am a writer. I don't mean that in a bragging way, it's just who I am. Some people can compute figures with ease, others can understand mysteries of science, some are great politicians and visionaries, I am a writer. It's almost effortless for me, and it's how I best express myself. But when it came to answering a simple question about being a Christian and writing a simple essay to get into college, I froze.

You see, I've always been intimidated by people that had that mountaintop experience. Those people that were utterly and completely lost and heard God shouting to them in their dark places. Those kind of salvation stories that inspire us all and make us realize how great our God really is.

I didn't have that. I grew up in a Christian home, I became a Christian early on and I never really strayed into too dark a territory. My story is boring — at least that's what I thought. And I thought, deep down, I couldn't say anything that would measure up, that I'd look weak to the admissions department and blow my chance.

I muddled through, got in, attended and graduated from Biola. But it wasn't until recently that I realized how far off I'd been when it came to thinking about my own story.

God doesn't need us to climb the mountain top, all he needs is our love, our devotion, and our faith in his Son as our Savior. There is beauty in all our stories.

Some of the speakers talked about that idea, about the struggle to find meaning in our own lives. There is a movie I love, a movie I've mentioned before, called "About Schmidt." There is a moment when the main character, Walter Schmidt, asks "I know we're all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?"

No life is wasted, and no one fails to make an impact when they find a way to serve God, and you don't have to be on a church staff to make that happen. One of the things I liked best about Biola is that they didn't equip us to be missionaries, they equipped us to be nurses, accountants, filmmakers, reporters, even scientists. But whatever they equipped us to do, they expected us to do it to the Glory of God. To let our faith shine through our example.

Imagine if we all lived that out. What would the world look like? Our stories are a work in progress. Find a way to make yours count.