Transformed by God's Story

This entry is part of a set of discussions on ​Inhabiting God's Story

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​Learning to inhabiting the biblical Story is a transformative process. It must be an important aspect of what conversion is all about. To find oneself in another story seems to me nothing less than a new birth.

This transformative process usually takes time. It takes time for our bodies to catch up and adjust to the realities we're discovering. Usually our whole sense of self has to rework itself, given the new reality we're finding ourselves in, and the person we're becoming as a result. That has certainly been the case for me.

More than a decade ago, before I understood the biblical story much, I was going through what seemed a midlife crisis (or a series of them). I felt deeply disoriented and overwhelmed, and deep down I knew the crisis was somehow related to this transformative process. 

​My natural reaction was to dig harder than ever in my studies, trying to understand the nature of things and what God is up to. And my therapist confirmed and endorsed that intuition. His recommendation was that I should indeed try to articulate my worldview. It was a legitimate part of my healing process and the integration of my sense of self.

Paul said "Do not conform to the pattern [the stories] of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). We are transformed by God's Story.
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But to be transformed by his Story, we need to know it. We need to learn it. We need to answer the questions that come up for us as we try to make sense of things. The Story has to make sense to us if we're going to find ourselves in it.



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