I’m sitting here, trying to relearn how to share my testimony.

If you had asked me a year ago, you would have gotten a well structured, 5 minutes down to the second, point by point story of what Jesus had done in my life to convince me he’s worth following. Had you asked me a year prior to that, you would have gotten something similar, but the stories included in that 5 minute word vomit would have been very different. Every year my testimony has grown to look a little different, with new emphasis on the present and renewed perspective on the past.

 

Who Jesus is hasn’t changed; but who I am has. Quite frankly, I’m thankful I’m not the same person I was five, even three years ago. I’m thankful that despite my best efforts to stop him, God has grown me.

 

A testimony is supposed to be a statement of where you were; and where you are; and how that change happened. Simple. The problem is that I’m in South Africa and I was in Colorado and I got here by plane and, aside from the Ukrainian agriculture teacher from Texas that I met, that doesn’t make for a very good story. It’s quite dull, involving 22 hours sitting, a few of standing and a 7 am beer. It’s a story in desperate need of exaggeration to make it worth telling.

 

A testimony shouldn’t require exaggeration. For a long time, I believed the real golden rule was “People don’t change”. Any story that claims counter will be an epic in itself – not in need of false details or colored narration.

 

This is my complaint: When we as Christians are called to share our testimony – it often reads as a set of whining followed by a dispassionate statement of “but Jesus is good”. We take our chance to speak highly of deliverance and salvation and squander it by listing off every negative thing we’ve endured in our lives. I do not deny that strife shapes us or that these stories are worth sharing; I’ve just grown frustrated that all our Testimonies include the “where I came from” but ignore the “where I am now and how I got here”. We ignore the crucial part; the part that moves mountains and speaks witness to miracles.

 

Most testimonies Ive given and heard from my peers begin something like this.

 

“I didn’t have it that bad. I came from a good home, its not like I was abused or                   anything – I had two loving parents and a roof over my head. Its not like I ever                   struggled to find food but…”

 

and they then dive into the list I was talking about. These are the bad things that DID happen. It’s the fact that this is our framework for testimonies that bothers me. Im not upset that people give too much credit to their pain; in fact I feel the opposite. Im frustrated that the legitimacy of our own story is defined by its comparison to someone elses. I’m frustrated that we only think our story is worth sharing if it involves world shattering trauma.

 

I want to invite you into a different branch of thinking. I want you to believe that your story is legitimate because it’s what Jesus has brought you through. Your struggles are real because you endured them and because in your context; you struggled. Your salvation is beautiful because Christ died for sinners, of whom there is no worst.

 

I want comparison to stop defining the significance of what Jesus has done in your life, the life of his child whom he loves. I want you to boldly proclaim and honestly think about what it is that Jesus has saved you from. Because it may not be an abusive home; it may not be depression and it may not be a south African prison cell. I can tell you it certainly wasn’t for me.

 

I know people who have denied that obviously molding events have played any part in who they are; just as I know people who give far too much credit to one particular event in their lives and ignore that there are 20 some years of other stories that fed into the sum of who they are.

You are not a single characteristic or the product of a single event. You are a complex, horribly broken and beautifully saved child of God and your testimony should be a story that reveals what that sum of stories looks like.

 

You are too valuable to tell a shitty testimony.

 

Jesus has done too much in your life for your testimony to only be a list of bad things that have happened.

 

You are too broken to ignore that bad things do happen, and no matter how small they may look in comparison to others – they have had an impact.

 

Your testimony does not need exaggeration; it needs honesty. It’s the story of a dead thing coming to life, of a miracle. Miracles dont need to be exaggerated.