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    The Rewritten Life: When God Changes Your Story
    The Rewritten Life: When God Changes Your Story
    The Rewritten Life: When God Changes Your Story
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    The Rewritten Life: When God Changes Your Story

    By Jessica LaGrone

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    About this ebook

    The Rewritten Life, based on author Jessica LaGrone’s popular Namesake Bible study, is perfect for any small group looking for a powerful and practical biblical study designed for today’s busy groups. Six readable chapters explore the transformational power of God through the stories of people in the Bible whose lives—and names—were changed forever by God. As you meet Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Naomi, Daniel, Peter and an unnamed woman, you will discover how God rewrote their stories giving them new names and identities that were in line with God’s call on their lives.

    In her own dynamic and engaging teaching style, LaGrone connects the biblical stories to our own lives, showing us that God wants us to be just as intimately involved in rewriting our stories so that we may become and do all that God has planned for us—all for God’s glory.

    Additional components for a six-week study include a comprehensive leader guide and a DVD featuring author Jessica LaGrone.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateApr 4, 2017
    ISBN9781501834448
    The Rewritten Life: When God Changes Your Story
    Author

    Jessica LaGrone

    Jessica LaGrone is Dean of the Chapel at Asbury Theological Seminary and an acclaimed pastor, teacher, and speaker who enjoys leading retreats and events throughout the United States. She previously served as Pastor of Creative Ministries at The Woodlands United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas. She is the author of The Miracles of Jesus: Finding God in Desperate Moments, Set Apart: Holy Habits of Prophets and Kings, Broken and Blessed: How God Changed the World Through One Imperfect Family, and Namesake: When God Rewrites Your Story Bible studies and Broken & Blessed book. She and her husband, Jim, have two young children and live in Wilmore, Kentucky.

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      Book preview

      The Rewritten Life - Jessica LaGrone

      INTRODUCTION

      It was the first day of Freshman English Composition. We all trickled into the classroom, filling up the back rows first with the latecomers reluctantly taking seats in the front. Never the early bird, I ended up front and center. The professor breezed in and, with perfectly pronounced diction, presented the syllabus of assigned readings and an intimidating list of assignments for the semester. Once she was done, she asked us the first question of the class: How many in here think they are already good writers? Here was a question I could answer confidently! My hand shot up in the air. My grades in high school hadn’t been perfect, but the one thing my teachers had praised again and again was my ability to tell a story on paper. With my hand still raised, I looked around to my right and left and then swiveled to see the rest of the room. Suddenly I was mortified. I was the only one with my hand raised!

      That moment wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as the following week when the professor handed us our first papers with grades at the top. Mine was a big, fat C! I had never seen one of those in an English class in my life. I was almost too humiliated to look the professor in the eyes. (Remember me—the only one crazy enough to proclaim myself a good writer on the first day!) When I turned to the page where she had written notes about how I could improve, I’ll never forget her words: It’s not enough to write; you have to learn to rewrite too. Good writers are not born in the first draft but in the many rounds of editing, improving upon what they’ve written.

      That advice proved helpful not only in English Composition but also in life. That year, and in many years to come, I would learn a hard lesson: I shouldn’t allow my life to be a first draft. I often discovered that decisions I had made, words I had spoken, relationships I had blundered, and habits I had struggled to break left me disappointed in life and in myself. When it came to my dreams, I often felt that I was holding my hand high in the air only to have the results marked up with red pen and a grade that made me hang my head in shame.

      What would I do when life wasn’t easy? When my own efforts fell short? Would I settle for the first draft or dream and reach again? It soon became clear that even my own best efforts weren’t the answer. I needed an editor, someone who could come alongside and take my first-draft life and help it become the masterpiece it was meant to be.

      As I began to learn about the heart and character of God, I found a new kind of hope. The way in which I saw my first-draft life changed dramatically. You see, God is a masterful editor. When our stories need a rewrite, God is there with a new page and a new start. God knows the characters to send our way to shape our stories—the doors that need opening and closing. In the Book of Hebrews, Jesus is called the author and perfecter of our faith; he is perfecting our story and shaping us:

      let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

      (Hebrews 12:1b-2 NASB)

      If God is the author, starting us off with big dreams and aspirations, then I’m grateful that God is also the perfecter, or editor, of our faith! God knows we won’t ever get it right the first time and yet never gives up on our stories: For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6 NASB).

      In the following chapters, we’ll explore the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau, Naomi, Daniel, Peter, and an unnamed woman, and we’ll discover the transformational power of God through the stories of these biblical characters who came to know God and whose stories—and even their names—were never the same.

      God wants to be just as intimately involved in your story, offering you an identity and a storyline that shine with the purpose for which you were created: to know God through God’s Son, Jesus, and to become more and more like him, bringing God glory.

      God has revealed himself to us in Scripture and desires to reveal himself personally to each and every one of us. God is a God who reveals and transforms. My prayer is that you will come to know God in a deeper and more personal way as you invite him to rewrite your own life story, allowing God’s dreams for you to unfold on its pages. As you do, you are inviting God’s transformation and responding to God’s revelation.

      Transformation is true and remarkable change. It’s what happens when something is no longer its old self but becomes something else. All of the people we will encounter in our journey together experienced transformation at God’s hands. God is not only great at creating (from scratch); God is great at transforming. When God’s creation goes astray, God doesn’t walk away in disgust. God rolls up his sleeves and gets down to the business of transformation. God nudges, whispers, shouts, pulls, and prompts until we get the picture of what God desires for us to become. And then God gently helps us get there. Through transformation God declares, See, I am making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

      Revelation is more than just the name of the last book of the Bible. Revelation is the noun that happens when there is something to reveal. Revelation is what God does from beginning to end in Scripture. God reveals himself and his character to us in Scripture again and again, ultimately coming to us in human form through Jesus so that we might truly know him and how he feels about us. When we know who God is, our understanding of who we are and what we are about shifts dramatically. All true transformation starts with revelation, not about ourselves but about the One who has the power to show us who we are and change us into whom we are called to be. Through revelation God declares, I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:14).

      Transformation and revelation are threads woven throughout the Bible and through our own stories as well. I pray these six stories from the Bible will help reveal for us six different times that God stepped into lives that needed changing and announced his transforming power with grace and truth. I hope you’ll be listening for the echoes of your own story in each chapter.

      After that first assignment in Freshman English Composition, I learned that it is never enough to turn in a first draft. I also found out that God wanted to walk with me and explore what it meant to live into the story he had given me. At every stage and in every experience of life we are led to ask again, Who is God, and how is God rewriting my story? May you discover more of God’s transforming power as you get to know him as the author and editor of your life and faith!

      Jessica LaGrone

      Chapter One

      ABRAHAM AND SARAH

      Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. . . .

      God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.

      (Genesis 17:3-5, 15-16)

      Names Tell a Story

      A name can function as a password, a key that allows you access to its owner. When I visit people in the hospital, that key can unlock doors or leave me standing out in the cold. When I walk into a hospital, the first person I meet is usually the receptionist at the information desk. My response to the question Can I help you? is generally to offer a name.

      I’m here to visit Mike Drummond, I said on a recent hospital visit. The woman paused, glanced at her computer screen, and smiled at me: "I’m sorry, we don’t

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