Tell me if this sounds familiar? “I grew up in a Christian home. I did the Jesus thing for a while, but I never took my faith seriously and kind of walked away from Him. But then, after an experience at church/camp/retreat/etc., God revealed Himself to me. My faith became alive and I’ve been following Him ever since!”
That’s my story in its simplest form, and it’s the story I hear time and time again at youth group, Kidmin, and among my adult friends. It’s a story of a slow drifting and sudden return, but there’s usually nothing all that dramatic about it. No one would make a movie of this conversion and return experience. But for the individual alone with God, that moment was the most important decision of his or her life.
Now, how about this story? “I was involved in some pretty dark stuff. I was living for myself and thought everything was going well, but then one day I hit rock bottom. And at that moment, when my past caught up with me, I heard the still, small voice of Jesus calling me to Him. After that, I put my faith in Jesus, and my life has never been the same.”
What a story! I’ve heard versions involving drugs, alcohol, gangs, prisons, and even worse. These are the testimonies that blow people away and bring people to tears. These are the testimonies that get people to see the incredible, life-changing power of God at work. These are the testimonies, the argument goes, that will truly show people Jesus!
Is it cynical to say the first story sounds boring in comparison?
I’ve thought this, and I’ve had many conversations with people who have thought the same. It’s like those of us who haven’t had a big, dramatic conversion experience are almost embarrassed to share our testimony. It’s this weird disappointment that our story isn’t more interesting, even though we’re grateful deep down that, by God’s grace, our lives never took such a drastic turn.
I know I’m talking to a select group of believers here, but this post is for the Christians who think their testimony is boring. Because I want to reassure you: There is no such thing as a boring testimony.
Let’s start by dissecting what it means for a testimony to be boring. According to Google’s dictionary (oh how I wish I still had access to the OED), boring means “not interesting, tedious.” Synonyms include “dull, repetitive, unimaginative, and uneventful.” Therefore, a boring testimony is one that’s similar to everybody else’s and where nothing interesting happens. I would argue that no such testimony exists.
Gotquestions.org defines a Christian testimony as “where Christians relate how we came to know the God of the Bible through the moving of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Most commonly, we are sharing how we became Christians by God’s miraculous intervention and work in our lives through specific events…. Though we can include specific information about how we came to accept Christ as Savior, these details should not be the focus of our testimony. The focus should be about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ…. [It] should also include the ways in which the Lord has worked in our lives to sanctify us for His service.”
Let’s break that down. A testimony is about 1) How we became Christians, 2) How our story emphasizes Christ’s death and resurrection, and 3) How God has continued to work in our lives to bring us into a deeper relationship with Him and use us in His work.
The problem with the summary stories at the beginning of this post is that they are deliberately vague. Our testimonies may take the same form as that of other Christians, but our individual stories are all unique. Why? Because we are all unique and our set of circumstances are each unique. No one else has lived your life. No one else has experienced what you have. No one else has seen God work in exactly the way you have. Your story is interesting because it is the unique expression of how God has worked in your life.
We must remember, however, that though the focal point of your testimony is your life and experiences, you are not actually the main character. That is God. A testimony is the story of what God is doing among His people. It’s about His death and resurrection that brings new life and transformation to all who believe. To say a testimony is boring is to say God’s work is boring.
Now some of you might be thinking, “That’s not what I meant. Of course my story is unique, but the way God has worked in my life isn’t nearly as interesting as how He’s worked in someone else’s life. I don’t see how my slow, personal journey with God could ever affect someone.” In other words, maybe our issue isn’t “boringness” but “boringness by comparison.” We’re back to which would make the better movie.
What fascinates me about this argument is we think the “best” testimonies are those where people first go through lots of struggles or experience a lot of pain. And to some degree, the Bible agrees that these stories are powerful. Forgive me if I’m stretching context a little bit, but in Romans 5:20-21, Paul writes, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Where there is more sin, there is more grace. The reason these big, dramatic conversion stories cut so deep is that we are seeing God’s grace in a real and powerful way. He is willing to take even the most miserable of sinners and transform them into people committed to His Word and growing in His likeness. We celebrate these testimonies because they so powerfully reveal God.
But in the very next verse, Paul writes, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2). We are not to deliberately sin so that we can experience God’s grace more, but the same applies to our testimonies. If I may reword this verse: “What shall we say, then? Shall we regret not having a testimony filled with more sin, more pain, and more spiritual death so that others could see God’s grace more? By no means!”
It says a lot that most of the people I’ve heard complain about boring testimonies are people who supposedly have a boring testimony. It is the people who have experienced rock bottom and consequently have experienced God’s grace in an incredible way who actually praise the “boring” testimony. They see God’s grace at work because of how He kept others from falling into deep sin. In fact, I’ve heard people with a so-called “exciting” testimony envy those who did not have to go through what they did.
We never know how our stories are going to affect the people who hear them. Imagine a testimony night where one of each kind of testimony was told. One person in the room might be deeply moved by the story of how God brought new life to someone extremely distant from Him. Another might be encouraged to hear their experience repeated by the person who once did Christian things, walked away, and has now become a fully committed believer.
There is no such thing as a boring testimony because every testimony is the story of God at work. Each story is different, and different kinds of stories will reach out to different people in different ways. That’s good! It is our differences that make us strong, whole and interdependent as the Body of Christ, and that includes how we came to know Christ.
So please don’t think your testimony is boring. Don’t compare your story to others because when you’re sharing your story, it’s not really about you. Your testimony is sharing the ongoing story of God’s work in the lives of His people, and what He does is never boring.
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That’s all for today. Just a quick note about the next post. Due to vacations and still needing to complete all my work writing on time, there’s going to be a slightly longer gap than normal before I’ll be able to write one of these again. So stay tuned for some sort of story on (hopefully) June 17!
~Brentagious
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