In Christopher Nolan's film, “Memento,”
Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man who has anterograde amnesia.
He can't remember anything for more than a few moments at a time, so
he records everything with polaroid pictures and tattoos to retrace
his steps. He's looking for a second attacker, who he believes
killed his wife and and bludgeoned him to the point of his amnesic
condition.
The big reveal, however, is after he
kills one of the men who had been helping/using him. What we find
out is that days before, this man who had been helping him shared
information that exposed he had been using him. Knowing that he
would forget this in a matter of moments, he wrote on the back of a
polaroid not to trust this man, and tattooed this man's license plate
number on himself, leading him to believe that this man was indeed
the second attacker. He told himself a story that wasn't true, only
to follow it so much that he would believe it as fact and act on it.
It resulted in murder.
Stories are really helpful. They help
us understand how we interpret life. They entertain us. We long for
hopeful, happy endings, and we long to be affirmed and loved. Sadly,
many of us have encountered huge bumps on the way to encountering our
happy endings. Many of us, in fact, have been mistreated, abandoned,
or wronged. The stain on the story can affect us dramatically, and
for good reason: it wasn't supposed to be that way.
In Genesis 3, we see the beautiful
story of mankind enjoying God in eternal bliss interrupted due to
choosing a deceitful serpent's words over the trusting words of God.
Beauty became chaos in an instant. And from that moment on, as sin
and shame invade our life stories, we tell ourselves stories that are
often more lethal and destructive than the bumps and bruises that
we've encountered in our own personal stories.
None of us would say we are like
Leonard. For one, we don't struggle with amnesia. And certainly, we
would never murder someone because we believed a lie about them,
right?
Yet, how often do we forget sin,
brokenness, and God's sovereignty when we are wounded? How often,
when we are busted and bruised, do we seek to destroy with our words?
As hurting people, we can let our the stories we believe lead us
down a destructive path. Much like Leonard of Memento, our hurt and
confusion can lead us to devastating results, all because we
reinforced over and over in our minds a story that is untrue.
How do we guard against this?
We remember God's Role:
Frequently, God puts us in situations that we wouldn't put ourselves
in. He sends Joseph to prison. He allows Satan to take everything
away from Job. He sends Israel to exile. He directs Jonah to
Ninevah. He places the disciples in the midst of a horrific storm.
In all of it, He is seeking to bring about obedience, trust, and
sanctification. No thing that happens to us is due to God turning
His back, rather He is patiently trying to point our gaze back to
Him. He cares far more about our heart than our circumstances.
We speak God's Word: Psalm 73 is
a great lesson in this. As the psalmist pours His heart out about
how he doesn't understand why the wicked have everything and he has
nothing, He draws near to God. He spends time with God. “You
guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to
glory.” (v. 24) He listens to God's Word, and He speaks it to
Himself.
We trust God's Greater Story:
In the midst of the stories we tell ourselves, we must tell
ourselves a better one. We deserve hell. We deserve wrath. We
deserve abject alienation. We hated God. We disowned Him. And
God's response is to come Himself and take on that punishment, so
that He might reconcile us to Himself. The cross is the most
pertinent image of this story, because if the cross is true, and we
trust in Jesus' saving power, there is no sin, no action, no thought
that can cause God to punish us. He can discipline and allow
consequences, He can place us in difficult circumstances and
hardships, but they never communicate God's wrath. Rather, they are
meant to point us to God's love and mercy, that we might draw nearer
to Him. Believe God's Greater Story of the Gospel.
