Everybody Has a Story

Of all the businesses in the world, I admire Chick-fil-A the most.  I love their food, their innovation (e.g. how they revolutionized fast food drive-thru during Covid), and the cleanliness of their restaurants.  I admire their values and how they serve the communities where they are located.  What stands out above all these is the way they serve customers in a genuinely friendly and respectful way.  I’ve told my wife, Lynne, numerous times that I wish Congress would pass a law mandating that all fast-food workers in the U.S. be trained by Chick-fil-A management. 

I observed a key insight into Chick-fil-A’s corporate mindset about eight years ago, when I was privileged to watch one of their training videos.  This statement from one of the videos spoke volumes: “We train our people to understand that everyone who walks through the door of a Chick-fil-a restaurant has a story.” That story might include financial hardship, relational difficulties, health issues, or a recent death of a loved one or friend.  The narrator went on to explain that they wanted their employees to understand and remember that the customer’s story, whatever it was, might impact his or her experience while visiting the restaurant. 

All of us have a story that influences us as we navigate our lives. Our story is always being added to, but nothing is ever removed from it. When December 31 rolled over into January 1 just a few days ago, Chapter 2025 in our stories was completed and the writing of Chapter 2026 began.  Experience teaches us that there will be circumstances for which we did not volunteer and which we cannot control that will impact our 2026 story, circumstances like sickness, a downfall in the economy, or a natural disaster.  There will also be positive or negative input into our lives generated by people who share life with us–family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even total strangers.  There will be outcomes resulting from the worldview that we adopt as we seek answers to what makes the world tick, why the world is in such a mess, how that mess can get fixed, and how things will turn out in the end.  Other contributors to our 2026 stories will include things much more personal–our sense of identity, our sense of meaning and purpose, and who will call the shots in our lives regarding morality: God, self, or some other god or individual.   

Some words of wisdom for writing our Chapter 2026:

1. The contributing factors to our life story that we have some control over begin in our hearts, flow through our minds, and exit by way of our mouths and/or actions.
   Realizing this truth, the wisest man who ever spoke God’s wisdom, King Solomon, once said, “Keep (or “watch over”) your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23 ESV).  The truth Solomon is speaking is that everything we experience in life can be traced all the way back to our heart for its starting point.  Every emotion we feel, every thought we have, every action we end up doing originates in our heart. For example, both true love and puppy love, both honesty and deceit, both forgiveness and resentment, both absolute truth and manufactured truth, both identity as a redeemed child of God guided and protected by Him and identity as a pawn of Satan all begin in the human heart. That’s why the best thing we can do to write a good Chapter 2026 is to get our hearts right and then keep them right.

2. Who or what we choose to be our God or god will determine who we will worship.  
   Worship is not optional. It’s in our human DNA, put there by God Himself.  Who or what we choose to worship will become the soil in which we will grow our worldview, establish understanding of truth, be schooled in wisdom, develop discernment, and establish our priorities which will fuel our goals and inspire our strategies.  Scripture and life itself teach us that if we choose to worship anyone or anything other than God, our story will not reflect the love, wisdom, character, and life transformation He as Creator God stands ready to bring into our lives.

3. How we choose to respond to pain, suffering, heartache, setbacks, and losses will write our story as much or more as does the actual pain, suffering, heartache, setbacks, and losses we experience.
   For example, pain can make us weaklings, or it can develop within us a character of patient endurance. Suffering can make us cowards, or it can embolden us to stand strong and suffer long.  Heartaches can make us withdraw from relationships, or it can create empathy within us that opens doors to even more meaningful relationships.  Setbacks can make us gun shy to try again, or they can be used as motivation to persevere and never give up.  Losses can make us losers, or they can be the teachers of life’s wisdom and discernment. In this regard, we get to choose what gets written.   

If our desire is to write a new and different story in 2026, we can’t keep doing what we have always done. Change is necessary. If you’re looking to change your story for 2026, I highly recommend what a personal relationship with Jesus has to offer you. It’s spelled out so well in these words found in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV):

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”