Reminders of the Story
We have dissected God, and man, and the gospel, and we have thousands, if not millions, of facts—all of it quite dead. It’s not that these insights aren’t true; it’s that they no longer speak. I could tell you a few facts about God, for example. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and immutable. There—don’t you feel closer to him? All our statements about God forget that he is a person, and as Tozer says, “In the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may.” How do we get to know a person? Through stories. All the wild and sad and courageous tales that we tell—they are what reveal us to others. We must return to the Scriptures for the story that it is and stop approaching it as if it is an encyclopedia, looking for “tips and techniques.”
Reminders of the Story are everywhere—in film and novels, in children’s fairy tales, in the natural world around us, and in the stories of our own lives. In fact, every story or movie or song or poem that has ever stirred your soul is telling you something you need to know about the Sacred Romance. Even nature is crying out to us of God’s great heart and the drama that is unfolding. Sunrise and sunset tell the tale every day, remembering Eden’s glory, prophesying Eden’s return. These are the trumpet calls from the “hid battlements of eternity.” We must capture them like precious treasures, and hold them close to our hearts.
(The Journey of Desire , 203–4) John Eldredge
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