Storytelling with Scripture

I recently gave my favorite talk and I’ll tell you what made the difference…it was adding scripture to my stories!

I have been asked to tell my story on camera, podcasts, radio, and in-person of how we built Choco le`a many times over the past 10+ years and have spoken on stages at churches and other venues for the past 4.5 years, but when I recently got asked to share it again, for some reason this time I felt stuck!

I knew our own story and could have whipped out an old talk I gave, but I always ask God to help me prepare for who will be in the audience. To customize and tweak it based on what they need to hear from Him.

I always pray before the event and God always gives me a word or an angle for the message for that group. And He did it again this time with the message of “Faith Forward” for an older congregation who I didn’t realize, had been around for 70 years and was just in the strategic planning phases to figure out how to make plans to move forward for the next 70 years.

God always knows.

And for this particular talk, I also really felt His push to include scripture with every story I told to make sure it was backed by His word and not my own. Honestly, adding scripture to my stories took me several more hours of preparation because I had to go through my Bible and find the right passages to emphasize points I was trying to make, but in His words instead of mine. This was definitely more work, but worth it.

Aafter all of this extra preparation, what I found was I gave one of my favorite talks ever! I usually speak very quickly when I tell stories, but I knew for this older congregation, I would have to slow it down. Make it simple to follow and speak clearly for it to soak in. And that is hard for me to do.

But God’s word really helped me to do that. As I read His word, it caused me to pause and really take in the meaning of what He was saying in those scriptures not only for them, but for me too.

And I found that I could tell my stories with so much more confidence and calm because I felt His power in the words on my pages.

I think…I think…after 4.5 years of being on stages, I found “the talk” I was meant to give moving forward. A combination of my testimony, our Choco le`a story, and encouragement for next steps all titled under what ironically I had been signing in my books with for the past 4.5 years, but never used as a title for a talk before, “Faith Forward.”

So faith forward friends!

It’s funny how some things can take years to refine, but that’s just the thing. We don’t know what “the thing” is sometimes until we move forward in faith and try it again and again until we find our voice, when we listen for His voice.

From now on, I’ll be doing all of my talks and storytelling WITH scripture!

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.’” -Jeremiah 29:11-12