Stories of Encouragement

I’m not sure how it all got started but my grandkids love to hear stories when I make them characters in the story.

Originally, I asked them what kind of story they would like to hear and then that escalated to letting them tell me who they would like to have in their story. Then it would be up to Grandpa to quickly craft a story that would include all the requested characters in the story.

To give you a further idea of the difficulty, here is sample list of characters to a recent story my grandson Dylan requested, “Grandpa can you tell me a story about Dylan, Delaney (his little sister), Mommy, Daddy, a dinosaur, a dragon, a tiger and a bad guy, in a castle?”

From that difficult list of characters and the location of being set in a castle, I came up with a simple story. I try to make it exciting but not so exciting or scary that a little boy will be unable to sleep! At the story’s end, I finish it off with a line something like, “And God helped Dylan to be very brave and to save the day.”

Each time when I get to that line in the story I look into my grandson’s eyes and see a cute little smile on his face. It is like he is realizing that with God’s help he can be brave, with God’s help he will be victorious, and that the result is assured. It is a lesson that I am still trying to learn today. I hope that I can impart these truths to my grandson so that he can live a less fear-filled life and a more faith-filled life than I have.

Recently, a man I know was having some things going on his family relationships. As I began to think about the problems he was facing it was easy to get bogged down in the reality of the situation. There were little kids that we all know can exhaust both mom and dad. There was the issue of the man’s father, who had given him a poor example of what a husband and father should be like. There were financial problems, angry words that had been spoken, and even some trust had been broken.

Then I began to see a vision of what his life would be like down the road. This same man was sitting next to his loving wife of many years. Their youthful appearance was gone, but their love, respect, and trust which had been so superficial in their early married years were now deep and real. The young children playing at their feet were not their children but their grandchildren. I realized the scene had fast forwarded 20 years to something similar to what my wife and I are currently experiencing. I need to sit down with him soon and share this little glimpse I have seen.

I am reminded of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall. The first decision was to rebuild the wall (Neh 2:17&18).  The opposition hit almost immediately (Neh 2:19). There was a lot of old debris that threatened the success of the task (Neh 4:10), but Nehemiah divided the task into bite size pieces, took intentional actions, and the task was completed. Fifty two days from the start of work, the wall was completed.  It was a miraculous schedule and all could see it was the work of God blessing their intentional actions and their faith.

Likewise we are calling men to a rebuilding process. We are calling men to recognize and listen to God’s voice in their lives and to ignore the voices of the world that want to keep them “stuck.”  It would be easy to focus on the debris and destruction in their lives but instead we are calling them to pursue intentional actions and to hope in God, their salvation. Like Nehemiah we need to view the wall as rebuilt. Then we can go about the daily walk to work out the details. Difficulties and problems may come but we know the wall’s completion is assured. The schedule may seem to slip in our eyes, but the work is in God’s hands.                 

Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA