If you’re a believer in Christ, you’re in the middle of a story. Did you know that? Want to know more? A novel is playing itself out, and the movie version is underway, with you as a lead character. Which story? God’s. And yours, too.
This story is the universal Christian arc—creation, fall, redemption, consummation—and your space within that sweeping umbrella. You were made by a God of love, and you wanted nothing to do with him. But then you saw the majesty of Christ his Son, and your own worthlessness in comparison. Now you are his child, adopted into the family, repurposed and recreated with a new heart to enjoy him for all eternity. The specifics of the story may change on each retelling, but the basic narrative is the same. Calling it a story doesn’t relativize or deconstruct its truth; it’s not just your truth. No, calling it a story proclaims God’s truth from the rooftops. A story from the living God of the universe cannot be false. Stories, especially poignant ones like The Lord of the Rings, resonate long and deep in the human heart.
What percent of the time do you realize you’re in this story? Thirty? Twenty? If it’s lower than you’d like to admit, don’t be alarmed. This post will discuss three steps for you to more fully realize God’s story and your place in it: beholding, believing, and rejoicing.
Behold God’s Story
Beholding is the most difficult step. Why? It takes time and effort to behold God’s story. Beholding other stories—like Netflix originals, sports on weekends, or friends’ social media reels—is easy and somewhat passive. But beholding God’s story is active. You must make an effort to look at it, to meditate on it, to savor it, and to spend time with it. The truth is, you have free will and God’s story is simply one among many stories to behold. Of course, God’s story is not equal to the lesser competitors. But the choice whether to spend your free hour on Netflix or in the Word is yours. The key is fewer hours on secular and neutral media and more hours in Scripture, prayer, and books by godly men and women.
You live in a post-Christian culture where the Christian faith is no longer the default worldview. For example, there are stories with two openly gay characters in a romantic relationship. If you behold too many of those stories, you will miss God’s superior story of love between a man and a woman (e.g. Song of Solomon) or the parallel relationship between Christ and his church.
Even for you in Christ, you won’t wake up (or fall asleep) automatically remembering and beholding God’s story. Your times of quiet are a chance to refuel, to re-behold God’s glory and your participation in it as his workmanship (Eph. 2:10). If God’s story was automatic in your heart, why would the writer of Hebrews state in chapter 12 verse 2, “…looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…”? This is a command. If you always looked, the command wouldn’t be necessary.
Beholding God’s story is the first step because you can’t believe, let alone rejoice in something you don’t encounter. Everyone who believes in and rejoices in Jesus Christ has beheld him. This reflects a major part of the story fulfilled by Christ: his incarnation and dwelling on earth with humans for three decades. Although you won’t see Christ with your eyes until the Rapture, he gives you more than ample means to achieve the same purpose.
Believe God’s Story
So you’ve taken time to behold God’s story. What now? You must choose to believe it. But wait, isn’t encountering enough? After all, the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” That’s partially true.
God speaks to Abraham in Genesis 15, telling him his reward will be great. Abraham struggles to believe in that moment. Then God tells him to count the night stars and says that will be his offspring. “[Abraham] believed in Yahweh, who credited it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Interestingly, verses 3 and 4 use the word “behold.” Abraham beheld the night stars and believed God.
Believing is part knowledge, part choice. A choice to believe without any knowledge is blind and empty. But knowledge without belief is rebellion. The knowledge gained from beholding entreats you to choose to rely on it, to trust it. Just like Abraham had to believe God’s story for his life and for future generations, you must do the same.
This step is the most tenuous. After all, one moment you may feel like you believe, and the next moment it slips away. But true belief takes into account such self-aware fickleness. “I believe. Help my unbelief!” cries out the father of the spirit-possessed boy (Mark 9:24). You won’t always feel like you believe, but you must nonetheless resolve with your will to believe. Be comforted that a desire to believe God is itself part of the believing process. Belief plays itself out on a continuum and not an on/off switch.
Beholding helps the believing. Who can believe in God’s promises if he doesn’t know or remember them? This is why God tells his people to memorize his words and know them. Jesus says in Matthew 4:4, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.'”
Rejoice in God’s Story
This is the last and most enjoyable step. Who doesn’t like rejoicing? (Or one of its synonyms: worshipping, admiring, or celebrating.) It is embellishing your belief. To risk an incomplete analogy, rejoicing is the icing on the cake of belief.
Rejoicing in God’s story marks an arrival of sorts—not a total arrival like in heaven, but something noteworthy. Your arrival at rejoicing in God’s story means you’ve come from somewhere. You’ve come from encountering and beholding God’s story and then believing it. Now it’s time to enjoy it.
Rejoicing in God’s story can look like sharing it with others, boasting a large smile, or reminiscing on his faithfulness in your past. It can look like hearing a new worship song from your favorite music artist, or maybe a classic hymn. It can also look like expressing your love for God creatively—in poetry, in sculpting, or even in dancing.
“Rejoice in the Lord always!” Paul says in Philippians 4:4. This is for you, Christian. Rejoicing is your honor and privilege as you exult in God’s story. This is foreign to a non-believer. They have not beheld God’s story of love and redemption and therefore do not believe it. Hence there’s no reason for them to rejoice in the Lord, nor can they. Evangelism and missions exist to make followers and rejoicers of Jesus, so hopefully they too can behold, believe, and rejoice in God’s story.
The Motion of God’s Story
God’s story is both universal and particular—universal for the whole cosmos, and particular in your life. It begins with creation, proceeds with fall and redemption, and concludes with consummation. Even that is limited. Saying God’s story concludes with consummation implies an ending like movie credits. But it’s more like “and they lived happily ever after”—the ending we love to hate for its triteness but are secretly jealous of the characters who get to live it. It’s your story in Christ too!
Beholding is filling the cup, believing is drinking the liquid, and rejoicing is enjoying the taste and acting with the renewed energy and focus the drink provides. Rejoicing in God’s story will remind you that it is worth beholding and believing God’s story all over again. Indeed, there is a cyclical nature to this process. The process of realizing God’s story is forever in motion.