Several decades ago, the Harvard Business School said the way to teach business was not to teach propositions or theories, but to learn from actual business situations and let business people struggle with how to solve the problems. That what the Bible does. The Bible gives us people in solid situations and lets us learn how to live by seeing them struggle with the situation. They fall; they break; they sin; they gossip; they do all kinds of things. But God has a way of saying, "They are my children, and I love them."

When I was a boy, growing up in south Florida with my mother, we didn't have television. In the evenings she would tell me about the family I didn't know. She told me about her wicked step-mother, and how she ran away from home in the North Carolina mountains three times. On the third time, she met my daddy, and they fell in love. He was a grocer and entrepreneur. After two and a half years of marriage, he died of appendicitis. She told me about the crazy relatives who came to the funeral and fought over the will. She told me about the officer at the bank that managed a little trust I had that got me through college and seminary. I got to know all those people through her. Occasionally, I would meet them, and later she would say, "Didn't I tell you they were weird?" You have people in your family like that, don't you?

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Our families are put together that way. We have jealousy, hatred, murder, dishonesty, fear, revenge; some are naughty, and some are nice. So in the following weeks, we are going to be looking at some of these characters. We are going to look at Jacob (you wouldn't buy a used car from him). We are going to look at Adam and Eve (talk about immaturity!), but, of course, they didn't have any history with which to work. We have Mr. & Mrs. Lot (she was a pillar in the community). We have Hosea and Gomer who had a marital tragedy. Cain and Abel are pictures of jealousy. David and Bathsheba — David learned that the grass is not always greener, and if you look at the story, Bathsheba is out of line also when she takes her bath. Then there is Rahab, the prostitute, who ends up in the lineage of Jesus. So we'll let these stories speak to us because God speaks to us through stories.

We all have a story. Sometimes you have to go to a therapist to get him/her to sort out your story because you don't understand it. It's not just those great stellar people who have these marvelous testimonies. We all have a story.

When Time magazine first came on the market, many intellectuals told Henry Luce, the publisher, that it was not a very intellectual magazine — there are too many stories about people. Henry Luce said, "I'm not the first one to tell people stories. I got the idea from the Bible."

We all have a story. When I first became pastor of a church right out of seminary, I will never forget the shock I had. Everyone I met, in one way or another, said to me, "You are probably going to be the one who will do my funeral. I want you to know about me and my life." What they were saying was, "I've got a story, and when my funeral occurs, I want you to know my story." We want our stories told. God has given each one of us a sacred story. Never diminish it. Never think your story is not as good as someone else's because it is unique. It is yours because God has given it to you. The only way we can legitimatize who we are is to reach back, touch our story, and say, "It's alright."