‘Within these pages Andy creatively, and powerfully, challenges us, saying that not only does everyone love a good story but everyone lives by a story. Then he inspirationally invites us to join in with what might possibly be the greatest, truest and most important story ever told, the one with the biggest impact on our lives. Miss it! Miss out!’

Matt Summerfield

‘From the opening paragraph, I was hooked. Let me just say that, if you’ve ever asked the big questions about life and wondered what on earth it’s all about, this is a must read for you and your friends.’

Carl Beech

‘Unpacks the various stories that society urges us to live by and helps us to understand the truth and impact on our lives of the God story.’

Rob Parsons,

obe

‘Encouraging and accessible. This book will bring you closer to God, the ultimate storyteller.’

Pete Greig

‘Fuelled by the belief that we are created for purpose, Andy Frost lays out a compelling plea for us to consider the narrative of our lives. Are we going to settle for less? Be short-changed by the immediate offers around us? This book encourages us to discover that there is a greater narrative at work that we have the opportunity to be written into – ultimately, we will find the real meaning for our existence.’

Lou Fellingham

‘Such a great read! It’s pacey and accessible and Andy manages to address the heavy questions of life but with a light touch. Whatever age or stage you’re at, this book is invaluable in discovering, or finding again, your Story.’

Tim Hughes

Andy Frost is Director of Share Jesus International and is responsible for kick-starting a variety of projects that help the Church to communicate the story of Jesus. He is a popular speaker and the author of a number of books, and has presented Jesus. The Series.

He is married to Jo and they have two daughters. Currently living in London, Andy loves travelling the world, surfing good waves, pushing himself in physical challenges and eating Mexican food.

Follow him on Twitter @andythefrosty.

LONG STORY SHORT

FINDING YOUR PLACE IN GOD’S

UNFOLDING STORY

ANDY FROST

Dedicated to my daughters, Eloise and Talitha,

that they would live wonderful, rich, profound stories

that point to the Author of all things . . .

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter one – Once upon a time . . .

Chapter two – Be happy

Chapter three – Safety first

Chapter four – Becoming somebody

Chapter five – A bigger story

Chapter six – The God story

Chapter seven – My story

Chapter eight – Characters

Chapter nine – What God wants

Chapter ten – Your unique subplot

Conclusion

Your story

Notes

Acknowledgements

It’s been a real privilege to write this book. My hope is that it will inspire us all to live a better story.

A big thanks to all those who have helped to make this book a reality. To the team at Share Jesus International – Matt Brinkley, Jasmin Jones, Daniel Watson, Malcolm and Jeanne Claridge, and all the Trustees – thanks for believing in me and giving me the space to develop the story concepts.

A massive thanks to the team at SPCK and, in particular, to my editor Elizabeth Neep, for her wisdom, creativity and encouragement. Thanks for taking this book on!

And a big thanks to my family – the inspiration from my children, the encouragement from my wife Jo and the healthy sibling banter from my brother Chris. Cath Lyden and Jacqui Parkinson, thanks for reading some of the early drafts! Your feedback was immensely helpful.

And finally, a big thanks to God for helping me to discover my unique story . . . here’s to the next chapters.

WHAT STORY IS YOUR LIFE TELLING?

Introduction

My granddad was a slender, quite serious-looking clergyman. Born in 1920, he had a Victorian air about him in his dark suits and wrinkly skin. One of his quirks was that he was a member of the Magic Circle.

He would take great delight on a Saturday afternoon in trying to teach me, a young and uncoordinated boy, magic tricks that I could then perform at family get-togethers. His magic apparatus, with its fanciful handkerchiefs and conjuring guidebooks, looked as if it had been passed on for generations. They all carried a pungent smell like historical artifacts.

It was the disappearing coin that particularly got my attention as a wide-eyed eight-year-old. I remember the first time he performed the magic trick for me and I was convinced that magic must be real. He neatly tucked an old farthing inside a patterned handkerchief, held it over a glass of water and dropped the coin in. The coin seemed to clang noisily against the side of the glass but on closer inspection, the glass was empty. The coin had vanished.

It was actually quite disheartening when he revealed that he had simply manipulated my attention, switching the coin for a replica that was made of glass, which made the same clanging effect but which of course appeared invisible in the water.

It was this art of selective attention that gripped me. It was so simple and yet could be used to profound effect. It’s the way a good magician will manage your attention by getting you to focus on what they want you to focus on. And while you’re focusing on that, they’ll ‘make the magic happen’. Abracadabra!

We live with a barrage of sensory information every day. We are forced to focus our attention on what we think is important and let other things go completely unnoticed. And with so much grabbing our attention – the bank balance that is never as big as we’d like, the daily nagging of an inbox that is never quite empty, the to-do list that is never complete – we fail to notice that with each 24 hours another day disappears. And with every day that disappears, we miss the opportunity to take control of the direction of our life stories.

You see, every life tells a story. The twists and the turns, the hurts and the pains, the moments of triumph and the moments of tragedy are like a series of film frames that collectively encapsulate the story of your life. Some of our life stories are straightforward, others are more convoluted and some are more like a collection of short stories stitched together like a sweater that your auntie lovingly knitted for you one Christmas.

And here’s the thing. What if the mind-bending illusions and the ‘magic’ words, the bank balance and the email inbox distract us from living a good story?

This book is about the one big question that I believe we need to ask: ‘What story is my life telling?’

WE ARE ALL BORN INTO A MUCH BIGGER STORY. WHAT STORIES FRAME OUR LIFE STORIES?

Chapter one

ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

Man is always a teller of tales. He lives surrounded by his stories . . . he sees everything that happens to him through them and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story.

Jean-Paul Sartre

The way I see it, life is short. At the time of writing, the average life expectancy in the UK is a meagre 81.5 years. Broken down, that’s 978 months, 4,250 weeks or 29,747 days. Given the brevity of life and the enormity of all the world has to offer, each of us will only ever experience a tiny fraction of all that can be experienced. And the cruel part is, we never know just how long we have left. Death could come a-knocking at any moment. None of us knows when our end credits will roll.

We measure age in the number of years that we have lived, but I wonder what the impact on our thinking would be if we were able to measure it in the number of days, weeks, months and years that we have left. How might that change the story we are telling? Would it move things up a gear, having that fresh perspective?

There can be something beautiful about funerals. Now, don’t get me wrong, funerals are often the hardest of events, brimming with grief, loss and a sense of questioning. But funerals can also meddle with our perspective for the better. Funerals can be a healthy reminder that death is on its way. Just like a JCB digger forcing away the topsoil of pleasantries and superficiality, they can brutally and beautifully create space for each of us to look into our souls.

As the eulogy is given, we are made to remember our own mortality. Often with a mix of tears and laughter, we reminisce over someone’s life story, we celebrate the good they did and the adventures they lived. And sometimes we are left wondering, how will we be remembered? We wonder what story will be told about our lives.

There is now an app for your phone that, taking into account your vital statistics, gives you a predicted countdown on how many days, hours and minutes you have left before you die. This may sound scary, but the intention behind it is to encourage you to embrace a healthier lifestyle and thereby extend your life. The app might help us focus on living well – but it really is just a ‘guesstimate’; without a definite countdown it is impossible to know when our time may be up.

Ultimately, the future is a mystery. We live in the uncertainty of not knowing just how long we have left. What we do have is the power to choose, in the here and now of today, how our life story will play out. Today, as another of our possible 29,747 days gets invested in the slot machine of life, we may not be able to choose exactly what we live, but we can choose how we live.

*

There is a famous scene in the 1970s zombie film Dawn of the Dead where two of the lead characters, Francine and Stephen, look down from the rooftop of a shopping mall to see zombies roaming around trying to get into the shops. With a sense of disbelief, Francine asks, ‘What are they doing?