A New Story

READ:
Isaiah 43:16-25

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Dan Hurley has been called “The Human Story Machine.” At the age of 25, on a whim, he carried his typewriter to Michigan Avenue in Chicago and set up shop on the sidewalk. A sign taped to his typewriter said, “60-Second Novels Written While You Wait.” When a couple said, “Write one for us,” Hurley asked their names and a few personal questions. As he typed away, a crowd gathered to watch. When Dan pulled the page from his typewriter, someone shouted, “Read it!” and he did. At the end of the story, everyone applauded.

Today, two decades and thousands of one-minute novels later, Hurley is still at it, writing the quick, custom-made stories. “People seem to open up to me,” he says. “They give me their trust. I give them stories. But before I type the first word, I give them something else: my ears, my eyes, my total, 200-percent attention.”

Many of us long for someone to write the story of our lives in a new and exciting way. The beginning of a school year can be filled with fresh resolve to put old habits and sins behind us. But our soaring hopes are dragged to earth by failure and the feeling that we will never change. We begin to think that what has been will continue to be, and we just have to get used to it.

If that’s how you’re feeling today, consider these words from the Lord: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

The life-story God wants to write for each of us is based on His faithfulness and power. It begins with His promise: “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (v.25).

As we open up to Christ and trust Him, we will begin seeing our story in a new and wonderful way. —Dave McCasland

REFLECTION

• What new chapter in my life-story would I like to see written by God?
• Why does it seem too good to be true to think that this can happen?
• Knowing that God made a way through the Red Sea for Moses (Isaiah 43:16-17), what do I think that kind of power can do in my life?

Let God be the Author of your life story.

campus journal