The Story in My Head
This weekend, I argued over cardboard boxes.
Not metaphorical cardboard boxes. Actual cardboard boxes. A pile that needed to be broken down and moved outside. They had been sitting there long enough that everyone had seen them. And somehow, instead of just dealing with them, the boxes became a whole story.
The fact was simple:
There are cardboard boxes that need to be broken down. It doesn't matter where they come from, who they belonged to, what was in them before... they are empty now and are trash.
That is it.
But then came the assumptions. Someone else is going to do it. It is someone else’s job. The job must be harder than it looks. There must not be room by the trash cans or someone would have already moved them.
And then the assumptions turned into a story. Everyone is irritated that the boxes are there. Everyone is expecting me to move them. Everyone is blaming me. I refuse to be the only one who cares enough to deal with them. Surely someone else will finally get irritated enough to do it before I do. I do everything around here.
And here is the funny part.
That whole FACT → ASSUMPTION → STORY line was playing out in the minds of two different people. And both stories could not be right.
Eventually, after the argument — which, of course, was never really about the cardboard boxes — everybody had their moment and we moved on. I simply asked one of the boys, who had not even been present for the earlier argument, if he would break down the boxes and move them outside. He did. Willingly. It took maybe ten minutes.
A job that had sat there for days, gathering frustration and assumptions and stories, was over in ten minutes.
The boxes were simple.
The story in my head was not.
God cared enough about my story though to tell us about Joseph and his many coats... Hear me out. You have probably heard of the coat of many colors... the one given to him by his father who covered him with favor... But if you look closely at Joseph's story... the coat tells it's own story - kind of like the cardboard boxes.
After the brothers steal his coat and sell him into slavery, Jacob (Joesph's father) was shown his very recognizable, bloodied coat.
That was the fact in front of him.
The coat was Joseph’s. It had blood on it.
From there he made the assumption a wild animal must have attacked him. (sidenote the brothers deceived him, but they did not tell him Joseph was dead.)
And then came the story.
Joseph is dead.
Genesis 37:33 says Jacob recognized the robe and concluded:
“It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”
But Joseph was not dead. Jacob grieved a story that felt completely true because it had been built from a real fact. The fact was real. The conclusion was wrong.
How often we do the same thing?
We see one piece. We fill in the rest. A delayed text. A facial expression. A person who did not call. Something left undone. Someone sitting somewhere when we thought they should have helped. A conversation where we only heard one side. And suddenly we are no longer reacting to what actually happened. We are reacting to the story we wrote about why it happened.
The enemy loves an unfinished story. He loves a fact with enough blank space around it for us to fill in the rest. Old wounds are very good storytellers.
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of loss.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of being overlooked.
Fear already knows how to fill in the blanks.
The fact may be: They have not responded. Fear writes: They are pulling away from me.
The fact may be: They chose someone else. Fear writes: I am no longer wanted.
The fact may be: There are cardboard boxes sitting in the house. Apparently, fear can write a full-length novel about abandonment and failures. 😂
But maybe before I believe the story in my head, I need to stop and ask:
What do I actually know? What am I assuming? And what story have I built from those assumptions?
Joseph’s story gets even more interesting when you look at the snapshots.
If we freeze his life at the bloody coat, the story looks like death.
If we freeze it at Potiphar’s wife holding his coat, the story looks like guilt.
If we freeze it in prison without a coat, the story looks like abandonment.
If we freeze when Pharaoh gives him a new coat, the story looks like alignment with the enemy.
But none of those scenes was the whole story.
That is the danger of freezing time. We can look at one moment, one fact, one painful piece and assume we understand the whole narrative.
But God in him omniscience sees the whole story!
Every history.
Every wound.
Every motive.
Every tired thought.
Every assumption.
Every piece we do not know.
And somehow he is working it all for good... to reveal, to heal, to challenge pride, to change hearts. He is using the facts, our assumptions, and the outcomes to shape the characters in the story.
Faith filled living doesn't say the hard thing did not happen or ignore the facts of the matter.
Faith simply asks that I do not build the whole story from one set of facts.
At different points, Joseph’s clothing was used to tell very different stories about him.
One garment convinced his father he was dead. Another was used as supposed evidence that he was guilty. Later he was clothed as a man of authority. But through every wardrobe change, Joseph remained Joseph and God remained with him.
That matters because circumstances can change. Other people’s stories about us can change. Our own assumptions can change. What a moment looks like can change completely depending on where we freeze it. But God is not limited to one frame and He does NOT change. He sees the whole thing. He knows what is true before we do. He knows what is still being written. He knows where the story is going. And that means I do not have to let fear, old wounds, or the enemy write paragraphs God never wrote.
The argument was never really about the boxes. That's a devotion and healing moment for another day... but how quickly a fact became an assumption, an assumption became a story, and a story became something we were willing to fight about.
Ten minutes later, the boxes were gone. The story in my head took a little longer to break down and take out. Maybe next time, before I believe the story in my head, I will stop and ask who is writing it.
Where have you taken one fact and built a whole story around it? How might God be revealing new information that would change your story?
Lord, help me slow down before I believe every story that forms in my mind. Show me what is true, what I am assuming, and where fear or old wounds may be filling in blanks You never asked me to fill. Help me trust that You see the whole story even when I only see one scene. Keep my heart anchored in truth and remind me that You are still holding the pen. Amen.
Until next time, keep following the Plott, and I will be praying for us all. 💛
Comments
Post a Comment