It Takes a Story
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by Stephen Trout
What does a movie like “Lady in the Water,” the writings of Donald Miller (“Blue Like Jazz” and “Searching for God Knows What”) and Gospel-centered counseling have in common? Answer? They all recognize the power of a good story, not only to entertain or teach, but to reach the heart.
Writer-director Shyamalan ‘s latest (and perhaps most misunderstood) film boldly asserts that story essentially saves the world, and is rich with the power of metaphor: eagles’ wings, a strong right arm, a loosened tongue. Shyamalan also wonderfully sets his redemption story smack into the middle of community, a community that becomes greater and more powerful against evil only as it works together.
Miller’s writings take personal narrative and authenticity seriously, but with a humor and honesty that we easily relate to because it immediately touches our experience, and so our hearts. Miller knows that meaning always has a context, a story in which truth puts on flesh. In counseling, it’s also the difference between trying to band-aid change with formulas (even if they contain truth) and surface prescriptions, and reaching the heart. Notice in the following illustration how Miller’s heart was reached only when truth put on flesh and blood:
“I tried to stop…I went to websites and looked up statistics about the health risks of chewing tobacco. I printed the statistics and placed them on my desk where I could read them when I was tempted. But it didn’t help. I still bought a can of the stuff every other time I gassed up my car. This went on for at least a year until…I was listening to the radio one afternoon, editing a chapter in a previous book, when a voice came on, very distorted and troubled. The man sounded as if part of his face were missing, low and muffled and slobbery. Between songs, the radio station had inserted a commercial, a public service announcement about the dangers of using chewing tobacco. The man in the commercial said that half of his jaw had been removed, that he had no lower lip, and that the reason his face was deformed was because for years he had used smokeless tobacco. He didn’t list any facts, he didn’t speak of any harmful ingredients, he didn’t say he was going to die of cancer. And yet the image of a man without a chin speaking into the microphone was enough to convince me to stop. I never used the stuff again. I didn’t want to….” (p.58, Searching For God Knows What)
Leaving aside other potential heart-issues in the chewing tobacco scenario (not the focus of this piece, but important nonetheless), Gospel-centered counseling is all about interacting with story, realizing that each of our individual stories are actually woven into the Redeemer’s greater story, His unfolding redemption narrative. Salvation has a rich history, worked out in a multitude of intensely relational stories containing poetry, parables, and physical “place” (geography) - all made possible by the Word-made-flesh.
And, our salvation has a present context, for as whole persons (or embodied spirits) who are in the process of “being saved” (and learning to live out of our justification), we begin to look more like Jesus to our neighbor. As Tripp notes, we incarnate Christ, the relational God-man, as we “become the look on his face, the tone of his voice, and the touch of His hand” to one another.
Application? Tell stories! Relating the stories of your weakness and Christ’s strength to a friend brings meaning, putting flesh on Bible truth. It gives them a context to see real change at work, as well as a flesh & blood “object lesson” to verify that the Gospel story is indeed powerful, and true. As we incarnate Christ to each other in this way, we bring shape and form (and meaning) to our common struggles with idols of the heart and suffering, and, in a rich way, help each other see and make sense of our story!
(For further reading on this, check out “The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story,” by Goheen and Bartholomew, and “To Be Told,” by Dan Allender. And don’t forget Don Miller too!)