Renowned journalist and radio personality Paul Harvey made his mark on America with his patented, “Good Day”. One of the daily moments that caught his signature sign off farewell was his radio program… The Rest of the Story. You know the one? Mr. Harvey would, by way of introduction, share with his audience of listeners the headlines or noted highlights of a story. He usually dropped just a clue then he would say, but do you know, The Rest of the Story. After the well placed commercial break, he would come back and dive right and tell us the rest of the story, the Larger Story and its details. I loved these programs and even collected many of the paperback books that bound these stories together into a collection that read a lot like a daily devotional. I was sucked into that spirit of “I wonder where this will go” as I listened to Harvey tell the story and listened to it unfold. Once in a while I could get two steps ahead and arrive at the story’s conclusion just before my guide, Paul Harvey, did!
Though I haven’t heard from or read Paul Harvey in several years, the offer of The Rest of the Story feels familiar and inviting to my heart these days- the idea that there is more to the story of my life and the story in which I live, provokes me to explore the more. There is no doubt that I was born into something in motion…something that proceeded me…a story that I was placed in and invited to step into and play my part. This is true of all of us. All you’d have to do is work through any person’s family tree to hear more of the rest of the story, to understand where they came from, who they belong to, and what in the world happened to their hearts along the way.
Dallas Willard in his book, Hearing God, offers the idea that the Bible is not a book of exceptions but rather a book of examples. A book filled with the stories where the main character is God and the pages of scriptures they are filled with His story and that of His friends. John Eldredge offers in the book, Epic, the scene from The Lord of the Rings where the two hobbits, Sam and Frodo, are advancing on their great journey to destroy the ring and Sam asks aloud, “I wonder what sort of story we’ve fallen into?” Eldredge suggests that Sam couldn’t have asked a better question! One that assumes there is something larger going on and that they have been swept up into it for a role and a part to play.
Wouldn’t it be great to know with more clarity and more confidence our story? We can.
Christianity offers that. An invitation into the larger story with a role that is yours to play and a story line that is full of adventure (walking with God), battles (against the unholy trinity of Satan, the world and the flesh), and people to rescue (those who are lost or wondering confused by the weight of the story). If you or I live in a story where we are the main character and the plot or story line is all about our comfort and/or control, then we would be living in way too small a story.
CS Lewis, in The Chronicles of Narnia, turned a phrase that is oh so appropriate for our lives when he writes the invitation to come further up and further in. Knowing The Rest of the Story changes everything in our lives. Some days, getting my bearings in the Larger Story is no small achievement. There is one character in your story and mine that would rather you not see, hear or move to your place in the Larger Story, a great evil that thrives on us being lost and disoriented. But there is One that is for us and offers a way, and even promises to guide us through.
We have a hope as well as a destination, larger than most of us have ever known. That is what the Great Story and the Great Author calls to us, “There is more and I, the Great I Am, want to show you around. This is going to take a while so take my hand and I’ll show you The Rest of the Story.”
