I just attended the story conference in Chicago. We had such great times. Chi-town was on one of our goals for this year so I was happy to mark it off the list. It was my first time spending time there. I have always just flown through and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Chicago is big, clean, and a sole provider of all types of meat. I thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, one day we had a progressive lunch and ate at four different places. Crazy I know but worth the experience. That was a really long intro to say that I have been challenged lately with telling the right story. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and he began a story that is beautiful, glorious, full of love, grace, and everything good. He began a story that is majestic and wonderful and it is our job to tell that story. Here is what I have been chewing on lately in my readings. All stories have themes. We derive themes from the big idea, the priorities, the consistent points of the story. The Bible has a theme, Jesus' life has a theme, and your life has a theme. The question to ask yourself is, "What is the theme of your life?" Now, the answer should parallel with that of Jesus' life theme. So, what is Jesus' life theme? Well, as you read through the Bible and look at the life of Jesus and the Words of scripture one can see that the central theme is HUMILITY. Jesus' life was such a pure example of humility and the Words of scripture reveal to us how much God hates pretense and arrogance. Here is the deal...If your life's theme is not humility then you are telling another story, not the story of God. Ten times out of ten the story is about you. We need to take heed to this and constantly remind ourselves to clothe ourselves in humility. Here is a good way to protect yourself from falling into the death trap of pride- continually ask yourself, "what is my motivation for what I am about to do?" It is very easy, too easy in fact to fall into a cyclical pattern of doing ministry or performing our responsibilities only to satisfy our need of self-grtification. One day we received praise for doing something in our particular jobs or responsibilities and people thought highly of us or made something of us and so we decided to make a career of it. Now every time we write that article for work, make that video for church, give that presentation, preach that sermon, write that blog and steadily check that hit counter, post pics or update our status on FB and anxiously hope for comments, or perform any task at all, the main motivation is us hoping people will like it and talk about it for days to come so we can feel great about ourselves and what we accomplished. The only thing missing in that is....the story of God. We have to guard ourselves from this cycle of self-gratification. It is good for nothing and it leads to death. My heart is challenged by this and I want to embrace this tension all the days of my life and lean towards humility. Are you with me?