I was reading through Genesis this morning.  Amidst the genealogies, I noticed the stories - the stories of a few men and the way they responded to God's desire for relationship.  The first stories we read are of men God sends on a journey and in the journey we read a story.

God sends Adam out from the garden, Noah out from dry land, Abraham out from Ur, and Isaac out from Beer Lahai Roi.  It's remarkable how, to give people stories, God sends them on a journey.  On a journey the story acquires new settings, characters and plot twists.

When I graduated from college, God sent Karen and I out from Chicago to the largest Muslim country in the world.  We learned to speak Indonesian and we woke up to the early morning call to prayer of the local Imam.  Our story took on texture.

God is forever sending us out of our comfort zones and into a place of greater dependence as he writes the story of our lives.  We can stick in the weeds and miss the plot, miss the entire idea that God is a story writer and our lives are stories.

It helps to ask a few questions like:  "What is the story of my life so far?  What comfort zones has God called me out of?  Have I heard his call?  How have I responded?"

As he writes the story of your life, don't be surprised if he sends you on a journey.  It's what he's been doing since the beginning.