6 Word Story about God

A website I like to read through each month is Bill Dahl's "Porpoise Diving Life." I have a link to the site posted here on my blog. I enjoy his, and his guest writers', insights into faith from the perspective of the "emerging" or "emergent" church. Bill offered a challenge to his readers in August: Write a six word story about God. At first I thought the idea was either impossible or too simplistic. But looking at the brief messages one finds on different church's signs I began to think differently. Maybe in 2008 we need to take on the challenge of creating the briefest of statements (can it really be a story?) about God. Maybe in the multi-tasking, over-scheduled, mediaized society we live in we need to be able to share a story about God with just 6 words.

So I've been thinking about what words must be included in a 6-word-story about God. How about Jesus, grace or faith? Can you leave out love, forgiven, saved? What about the word "God?" Shouldn't it say something about discipleship or include commands like discover, live, share, and tell? How about wonderful, hope and joy? What about Creator, Kingdom and life? Which six words should I choose? Do I dare waste one of my six words with "and," "a," "the," or "it?"

Of course Bill got the inspiration for the title of his website from Rick Warren's bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life. I like that book, but like Bill and others there are aspects of the book I'm not so comfortable with (What happens on day 41 for example?). But one of the great catch phrases from Purpose Driven that has stuck with me is "It's not about you." That's not six words, but four, and yet I think it says quite a bit in regards to discipleship and our life in Christ.

But Bill's challenge asks us to create a six word story about God. Hmmmmmm. It is to say something about God in some sort of narrative way... after all that is what a story is. I think it should be my story about God and not a quote from Scripture. Okay... after some pondering and kicking by the Holy Spirit, here's what I got (Let me know what you think):

God loves so we can love.