A friend of mine told me he was going to another nation to teach English and share his faith. He said he was still working on his language skills but he has his testimony memorized.

Sharing your story is an essential way to share the Good News; after all, the Good News is all about the Story! I wonder if, sometimes we are too “back then” focused on our story. I met Jesus in…fill in date here…when I was living in…fill in location here…and I was burdened by…fill in sin here…but He forgave me by dying on the Cross. It’s all true and worth sharing.

I wonder if our culture is too “now” focused. Oswald talks about how important today is in our story. He writes, “Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, ‘Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.’” Don’t let my story from then, he says, not be reflected in the grace and power I walk in today.

My story should be real and powerful today! Yesterday’s light can’t replace choosing to “walk in the light as Jesus is in the light” today.

I think I’ll begin my story with “Can I tell you who Jesus is to me today? He is light to me in a dark and confusing world. He gives me mercy so today, I don’t have to try to live with guilt and shame. He takes my harsh and unkind words and attitudes I have with my wife and kids and neighbors, and he gives me the strength to ask for forgiveness and choose better words next time. He leads me and is in charge of my life today, and I don’t have to wander, without direction or hope.”

“He can do the same in your life today. And it started when Jesus came, and paid for the guilt, shame, and sin when he died on the executioner’s cruel instrument of capital punishment, the Cross.”

Walk in the light today, and share the Story through your story.

I think about the Cross in different ways: where I found mercy, how I am saved, what moves me to consider His great love. But the Cross is that place where I pray, because it is where His answers are found and where I am most connected to Him. The Cross is where He bridged the desperation of Earth to the aspirations of Heaven.

I can walk in freedom. I need no one’s approval. I find healing for the brokenness I often carry. Most importantly, His mercy is there…and I need His mercy poured onto my life.

Chambers says this: The Cross represents only one thing for us—complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ—and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.

My identity is there, at the Cross; I’m most fully human where He was most fully God. No posturing, no poseurs, no presuming. It is fully His invitation, His mercy, and His embrace at the Cross.

I don’t think I understand, but that’s not the goal. I may not find every answer like I want, but that’s not why I go. It’s so I can know Him, fully, and receive from Him, mercy, and find my identity in Christ Jesus. To the only true God who became man, who gave Himself to the pain and death it took to invite me to join His prayer and call out to Abba, Father.