Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 1: The Greatest Story in the Word • 35

messiahs rise again, and meek disciples wind up inheriting the earth. Can you see it?

This is where we must begin to get our pretense on. It is here we begin with forging identity. It does not start with us, our gifts, talents, desires or dreams. It begins with the Father and his Son, with the Spirit’s telling of his triune Story , the tale of love and grace and rescue. No person can possibly know what their life is about or what life means if they ignore God’s telling of the one, true, and final Story of the creation, and his design to bring it back under his rule. In God’s Story, the weak shame the strong, and the poor are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom. In God’s Story, the first will be last and the last first. In God’s Story, to be great in the Kingdom is to be the servant of all. Everything is topsy-turvy, upside-down, inside-out. To succeed in the Kingdom, you’ve got to be prepared to see things in a new way, to let the Story change the way in which you see and understand everything. Story-tellers and Story-indwellers all know how to kiss frogs in such a way as to see some princes liberated out of them. The life of the prince is there; you need only give it a smooch to unlock the power. In the end, you simply ought not trust any so-called champions of the Kingdom who do not have warts on their lips, or don’t raise ugly ducklings for a living. They’re not legit. I wonder – have you kissed any frogs lately? Join the Story, and let your life be made whole, and be transformed. Believe me, as you better learn the Story, you’ll come to enjoy kissing frogs, in time.

Comprehending who we are and what we have been called to be and do in life demands that we figure out what God is doing. In