​Remember when?

Remember when. A lot of great stories begin with those two words. Great stories like this one…

Remember when, Bon Jovi’s song “You Give Love a Bad Name” was the the number one song on the music charts?” The year was 1987. And I remember that because it was the most played song on the cafeteria juke box my freshman year of high school..

One day while I was eating lunch, this song was playing in the background. Out of nowhere, a girl runs over, jumps up on our table, and yells “Fight!” Then she jumps from table top to table top to the back of the lunch room.

Finding this announcement irresistible, we all follow her to a circle of people watching a couple of students fighting. But it was not just any fight. It was a girl fight. And not just any girl. Tanya was in this fight. She was tough. No one in his or her right mind messed with Tanya. But for whatever reason on this day, someone did.

There is food everywhere, and the two are punching, scratching, kicking, and pulling hair.

And then, the other girl picks up a cafeteria tray, and with food flying everywhere, she hits Tanya on the side of her head! Bam! Tanya’s eyeball pops out and shoots across the floor. Stunned, everyone freezes as we watch Tanya stop fighting, clutch her face, and chase her eyeball as it rolls under a table.

No one knew…but we discovered…Tonya had a glass eye.

Teachers escorted all us students out of the lunchroom. As we are standing outside in the hallway, we watch through the big plate glass windows, as our teachers and the cafeteria staff--- on their hands and knees—sort through french fries and peach wedges looking for Tanya’s glass eye.

We love a good story. We love to listen to stories. We love to tell stories. Stories fuel our emotions and engage the imagination portion of our brain. Stories can move us to action. Stories can build bridges between multiple generations. I’ve watched my kids look up from their phones and tablets to listen to their grandpa or grandma tell a story.

I love a good story, but I discovered something else recently. I discovered why I love stories. Two words. I used them in the story about Tanya’s surprise. If you’re like me, perhaps you’ve never noticed them before, even though every story has them. My oldest son would say his favorite two words in my stories are “The end.” But I suppose, most teenagers would say that about their fathers’ stories.

No, these two words are the hinge of every bedtime story you’ve ever told and every novel you’ve ever read.

“And then.…”
I love those two words. So simple. Hardly noticeable. But there is so much hope in those little words.

“And then…” makes all the difference in the world.

Now that I’ve pointed them out you’ll recognize them in the future…It’s the moment where Scooby-Doo takes the mask off the monster, and the mystery is solved. Or when Apollo Creed can’t believe Rocky is getting back up. It’s the moment when you’ve been freezing in the tree stand all day, and then you hear the heavy snap of a twig only to forget you’re cold.

The longer I live, the more I notice we never seem to confuse an “And then...” moment with a “The end” moment more, than when we fail. And we all will fail. Some of us will really blow it.
Nowhere in our lives is it easier to confuse an “And then…” moment with a “The end” moment than when we blow it.

I wrote a book titled “And then…” it’s simply a collection of stories meant to encourage us in those seasons where it feels like its over…I can’t tell you the number of people that have reached out to me after reading it saying, they’d experienced a divorce, a bankruptcy,…an addiction so consuming…they truly had embraced a “The End”.

Most likely there will be seasons in life where it feels like it’s the end of our story… and we mentally type the words “THE END” to what feels like the final chapter of our productive lives and we turn our paper in…returning to our seat resigned to sit quietly as the rest of the class finishes…

I picture Jesus, taking out his English teachers red pencil…and He crosses out “The End”…and writes just above it… “And then…” and he hands it back to us and says… “You’re not done.”…and with all of the love and grace that I’ve never experienced from an English teacher…He looks at you and he looks at me…and you know his heart is for you to keep writing.

I don’t know where you’re at in your faith journey but for those of us who’ve been a Christ follower for a long time…that’s actually easy for us to understand. We’ve seen God do that. And we’re able to…without much imagination…look at the brokenness in ourselves or others and say…God can do something with that. Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “There’s a message in that mess” or “there’s no testimony without that test.”

Embracing a “The End” after we fail isn’t the only way to end our stories prematurely.

The same thing can happen after an incredibly rich season of ministry. You say, “how’s that?” Here’s what I mean…. Imagine you’re in your late 20’s or early 30’s and you feel called by God and position yourself for his blessing through humble obedience. And for 8 – 15 years you’re rocking… (Carey Nieuwhof has a theory...) you just look back and say, “Wow! That was incredible. I can't believe I was able to be a part of that!”

It’s not just pastor’s and ministry staff…The same is true in business, academia, farming, family life, marriage relationship…you name it.

And here’s what happens, the growth trend starts to slow…or stops…or dips…

We look back and say “remember when…” and we find ourselves in the same conversations with different people and we say… yeah but, “remember when”.

Don’t get me wrong… There’s something really healthy about stopping occasionally and leading our teams and our congregations into moments of reflection and thanksgiving.
The problem is, if we’re not careful… we find ourselves just duplicating what worked so well back then but find we’re not getting the same results…. Or worse, we chalk it up to the “best season of our lives. It had to come to an end eventually”…right?

We stop dreaming.
We stop brainstorming.
The white board markers dry up…so does our imagination.

Instead we find ourselves saying this a lot… “Remember when…”

I started this blog those two words…“Remember when…” and while none of you moved physically there was something that happened in your brain and you didn’t even notice. You leaned forward mentally and you opened the drawer located in the front of your brain reserved for memories.


Remember when…
Bon Jovi…
You Give love a bad name…
…and you had a file for that. Maybe it was labeled “1987”.

Here’s the challenge as we get older and we experience failure, success or neither…we begin to live our lives out of the “remember when” portion of our brain…instead of the imagination portion that fueled all of the ideas and motivation of our youth.

But what if God wants to insert another “And then…” in your story?

Listen to me, this is your doggie bag for my portion of the evening…
God’s best for you lies in either knowing your “And then…” or engaging the imagination part of your brain as you pursue Him and his revelation of your “And then…”

I’m going to say that again… God’s desire for you is to rest in the knowing of your “And then…” or to engage the big dream, imagination part of your brain as you pursue Him and His revelation of your unique “And then…”

No matter how old, young, healthy or sick, if you’re reading this…God’s plan for you is to discover how He desires for you to bring glory to His name and further His kingdom.

Has "Remember when..." become your subtle "The End"? God’s plan for your story…starts again with “And then…”