Michael Cunningham wrote, “We become the stories we tell ourselves.” Maybe you aren’t even aware of it, but you do tell yourself stories. For instance, have you ever worried about anything? Worry is a story you tell yourself about an imaginary future, but it’s a negative and fearful story. Our stories shape our future and our present. Here’s how to tell ourselves positive, healthy, prayerful stories.
Why we Tell ourselves Stories
The Bible agrees that we tell stories, and those stories inform who we are, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7).
Our brains are wonderfully creative organs. Consider this quote from Escaping the Matrix: Setting Your Mind Free to Experience Real Life in Christ
“Our brain weighs only three and a half pounds, but this little organic computer can in most respects outperform the largest and most sophisticated computers humans have been able to construct. Consider that one gram of this gray matter (roughly the size of a pea) is more complex than the entire global telephone system. The average adult brain consists of more than 10 billion neurons communicating with one another through more than 10 trillion synaptic connections. …As unbelievable as it sounds, the number of possible neuronal connections in the brain is more than all of the stars in the known universe (approximately 50 billion galaxies with an average of 100 billion stars each). Although the average dendrite is a fraction of a millimeter in size, if you were to line up all the dendrites in your brain, the line would circle the globe five times!”
With that kind of processing power, we are able to craft the most imaginative stories about things we don’t know. We seem to have this need to explain, or to understand things. Psychology Today reports that people say they worry because it helps them solve problems. It may help them think constructively about things. Most people worry about the future or the present. And most people worry in the bedroom. I don’t know about you, but nighttime is when my worry-warts come out in full force.
When we have a future that is uncertain or scary, we feel better if we can define it a little. So our brains create little scenarios and we let those stories circulate around and around in our minds, defining and putting our uncertainties into a more orderly (if more frightening) alignment.
Why we Need to Change our Stories
It’s so important to guard what you allow your mind to dwell on. The Bible warns in many places about the danger of believing untruths. “People are slaves to whatever masters them” (2 Peter 2:19). In John 8:32 Jesus tells us that when we know the truth we are free. But the opposite would also be true – when we believe a lie, we are in bondage.
Worry is, for the most part, a bunch of hooey. I shudder to think how much time I have wasted believing a worst-case scenario only to discover my great fear never occurred. Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever feel just a little aggravated when things turn out good when you predicted they would bomb? Come on, admit it!
Some of the most common things we worry about include relationships, work, finances, housing, the future, lack of confidence, health. Read more about this in Psychology Today.
So Scripture warns us against believing lies, and tells us what to replace those lies with: “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8).
Engage your Senses in your Story
Worry stories can be very evocative to us. We imagine little details about how something is going to happen, what will be said, how we will feel, and how others will act. Boyd and Larson compare the stories we tell ourselves to beer commercials. After years of research, advertisers have learned to make commercials very vivid and evocative – the more the senses and emotions are touched, the higher the sales will be. Dollars prove them right.
Gregory Boyd writes, “Our true ideas have got to become at least as vivid, as concrete, and as experiential as our false ones. The theology in our minds has got to become as impacting as the beer commercials. Our vision of God has to become as concrete and attractive as the most beautiful movie we’ve ever seen and the most moving symphony we’ve ever heard. We need to embody all our true information by imaginatively seeing it, hearing it, feeling it, smelling it, and tasting it.”
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I love to imagine scenes in the Bible, and tell myself stories as if I am in the scene. I call them ‘prayer stories.’ I choose scenes that are still future to us, in the book of Revelation. As I set the scene, I try to employ as many senses as I can to keep me grounded in that scene. My mind tends to wander, so engaging my hearing, touch, smell, etc. helps me stay on task.
I have a sound app on my phone that I often use. I love the sound of a river, and imagine I’m sitting by the River of Life with Jesus, just talking. Or I use the sound of birds, or crickets chirping at night.
As I sit in my chair, I am mindful of the feel of the seat under me and the chair arms. Sometimes I use essential oils to engage my sense of smell.
Then I let my mind play out a scene like one in the Bible. The 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation have seven messages to seven different churches. Each church was struggling with something. John encourages the churches to persevere and gives them some advice. Then each section ends with “to him who overcomes, I will…”. Each “I will” precedes a gift.
These seven gifts of encouragement can help us if we really embrace them. Imagine you are an overcomer, and at the end when you finally reach heaven, you are meeting Jesus to receive the gift he mentions. You are a warrior, and you fought hard, and you persevered and overcame the struggle. Below are a few of them. Which one resonates with you?
Prayer Story Examples
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Revelation 2:7: “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.”
Imagine you are sitting under the Tree of Life with Jesus. Are you at a table, or sitting on the ground? Maybe you are sitting in the tree, on a large branch. The Tree of Life yields 12 different fruits, one in each month. What does it taste like? The leaves of the Tree of Life are for healing. Imagine Jesus pressing the leaves to make His own personal blend of essential oils, just for your healing. What does it smell like?
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Revelation 2:17: “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”
Imagine you are standing in a meadow, Jesus hands you a jar of manna and a spoon. What does it taste like? After finishing the manna, Jesus places a stone in your outstretched hands. It fills both your palms. Its smooth and shiny, you can feel the weight of it. It’s cool to the touch. As you peer into the surface, you can see some letters start to appear. They spell out your new name, a name no one else knows but you and Jesus. This name has meaning, like all names do. The meaning of your name encompasses your whole life; your giftedness, your circumstances, the events that shaped you. All makes perfect sense as you gaze at your new name. How do you feel?
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Revelation 3:5: “He who overcomes will be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”
You are dressed in a long, flowing, white gown. You stand in line of similarly dressed people. Your posture is erect, your heart thumps with joy. As you reach the front of the line, you hear Jesus slowly pronouncing your name. He announces the accomplishments of your life before God the Father and a crowd of angels. Jesus holds a large book in His hands, and you see your name inscribed on the page in letters of gold. What does it mean to you to see your name there?
True, Holy Stories We Tell Ourselves
Jesus taught in parables – or stories. He used that mechanism because it’s easy for us to understand concepts when they’re in story form. But He also used the story because of the evocative way they appeal to our senses. God created us as emotional and sensual beings. Why not employ those qualities in our personal story-telling?
May the stories we tell ourselves be true, positive, holy, and evocative.
…because U count, deb