I love Bible stories. I grew up learning them in Sunday school, reading them in my Bible stories collection book and my children’s Bible. The problem was I put them in the same category as all the other stories I used to read.
As a child, I saw no difference between the two. Visually, all children’s books look the same. Naturally, since they are meant for children, they all follow similar guidelines. But from my perspective, since I saw no difference, I viewed my Bible stories much like I viewed Aesop’s tales or fairy tales (two of my favorite types of stories to read as a child). And as I got older, I continued to see the people in the Bible as flat 2-dimensional characters who only existed in the pages of the Bible.
My Epiphany
That all changed one day when I was reading the book of Esther (one of my favorite books of the Bible) and had an epiphany: Esther was not make-believe.
She was a real person. A historical figure in fact, and not some fictional character birthed from an author’s imagination. That thought blew my mind and totally changed my thinking.
I realized Biblical stories were peeks into people’s lives. They were like condensed biographies of everyday people struggling with some of the same issues we face today: injustice, depression, infertility, stress, relationship issues, parenting issues, self-doubt, insecurities, failure, loneliness, racism, prejudice, fear, courage, triumphs, setbacks, etc. You name it, it’s there because as the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes (Ecc 1:9), there’s nothing new under the sun. If a problem existed back then, it still continues to exist now.
You could say they were the original reality TV stars. (If reality TV was a book and there was no creative editing for the sake of ratings, that is.)
A Cloud of Witnesses
The people in the Bible have walked before us and created a path for us to follow. We’d call them mentors, advisors, coaches or even personal trainers. The Bible however, refers to them as a cloud of witnesses.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1
Far from being flat two-dimensional characters of literature, they are our own personal cheering squad, cheering us on. Reminding us our goal isn’t to run the fastest race or to be the best runner on the field, our goal is to endure. So they encourage us to keep going even when it’s hard and we don’t think we can take another step.
Their lives testify to the grace, love and faithfulness of God.
What I’ve learned
Bible stories are about real people who’ve overcome adversities and problems in their life. Their lives can inspire us to overcome some of our challenges. It can also give us comfort, knowing we’re not alone. And it’s encouraging to know there are others who have walked the same path, faced similar obstacles and have triumphed. Their legacy strengths us to endure our own races.
Of course, the Bible isn’t the only place to find these stories, there are modern-day witnesses all around us; challenging and inspiring us to keep running our race.
My hope is we either find those people or we become that person to someone else.