Your Story Is GOOD

by Candace Cortez

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me, that I am a competitive person. This fire inside me, encouraging me to win, dominate, overcome, and potentially leave my competitors in the dust, is all fun and games when it comes to Scattegories, The Settlers of Catan, or Pictionary. This is not so great in other areas of life. Comparison is a competitive spirit’s ugly brother.

Whenever the topic of testimony comes up, there is a sneaking desire to compare my story to others and deem it better or worse than others. Have you ever done this? Somehow I create categories that determine if a story is good or not. For example, if a person has been delivered from some sort of addiction, man that story is so good! If a person’s marriage was on the rocks, and then the Lord spoke to them and healed that relationship, man that story is good. If the Lord uses the wisdom of your parents and keeps you from addiction and other bad choices…that story…is…nice? As a person who has spent most of my life as a follower of Christ, I have found myself comparing my story to others and found myself wanting.

God has been challenging me in this recently, and I want to encourage you, that God does not compare your story with the story of others around you. He doesn’t consider it in terms of better or worse, boring or exciting. God’s concern for your story is that it leads to relationship with Him.

Have you ever walked into a room with a person watching a movie, and then you got pulled into the story? Well, eventually, you’re going to have some questions because you missed the beginning when the foundation was being laid or you missed the character development. There have been other times when time didn’t permit us to complete the movie, so I didn’t get to find out if the conflict was resolved, or if the guy got the girl! When we get to share our story or are blessed with hearing someone else’s story, we must keep in mind, the story is not finished yet! We may never know all of the characters, incidents, miracles, and hidden ways the Lord has moved in their life to get them where they are today. 

I was speaking with a young person a couple weeks ago who was feeling insecure about sharing her story, because she currently wasn’t doing as well as she was when she first began following Christ. Maybe this is you. You feel like, at one point, you were so excited about following Jesus, and somehow you have lost your passion and are struggling to regain the momentum in your growth. Or maybe you are young in your faith and haven’t experienced freedom in certain areas of your life. Or maybe right now, you are hearing from the Lord on a regular basis and are passionately sharing with others. No matter what season you are in, keep moving toward Jesus. If you are for whatever reason, “two steps back” from where you’d like to be, or used to be, do not look down on your story. God wants you! He doesn’t expect a straight line, sometimes our story takes some twists, turns, and backtracks. Your story is a good one, when God it in it.