Logline Day 2: Rewrite Their Story

       There was once a worker on board a ship who became very seasick.  Because of his condition he was asked to retire to his bedroom quarters where he could wrest and recuperate.  During the night, word came to him that a man had fallen overboard.  Wondering if he could do anything to help he lifted up his bedroom lamp into the porthole of his room...The drowning man was saved. Several days later, once the sick man had fully recouped from his illness he happened upon the drowning man on the deck.  The saved man gave this testimony. He said he had gone down the second time, and was just going down again for the last time, out of air and strength, when he put out his hand. Just then, he said, some one held a light at the porthole, and the light fell on his hand. A man caught him by the hand and pulled him into the lifeboat.

        The scene opens as a man gazes from the tomb out upon the stormy sea.  Imagine with me as he begins to tell his story.  “From the tomb I could see amid all the lightning and thunder, a tiny ship about to sink.  I laughed as they struggled in vain to forge the rough waters.  I had seen many a ship go down in storms much easier than this one.  But, then something happened that I will never forget. . .I still don’t quite understand it.  There was a man in that boat who kept it floating with the simple wave of his hand.  He calmed the storm!  I knew then in my heart that this man who had the power to calm the storm on the water could calm the storm that was raging in my heart.”  Now we find ourselves in Mark 5.  We find a demon-filled man.  One who could not be tamed or contained by any amount of strength or manpower.  Yet, read on in three to four verses you find a picture of peace where once read a perfectly scripted horror story.

         In the moments it took to rewrite this man’s logline,  his eternity was impacted.  The course of the rest of his life radically transformed.  He who once lurked in the tombs and howled at the moon now sits at Jesus’ feet.  One who cut himself with rocks, and possessed a demonic strength is now clothed and at peace.  The man who pleaded that Jesus’ leave him alone,  and not send his demons away,  now beseeches the Master that he might not leave his side.  No one could have predicted this surprise turn of events.  By all measure of foreshadowing, his logline would forever be one of misery, torment, and destined for hell.  But Jesus…well, he has a knack for stepping in the worst kind of testing and turning them into the best kind of testimonies.  Logline: Rewritten.

         Have you accepted Jesus as your Savior?  If so, Christ has rewritten your logline! You ARE a new creature! So, what are you doing to show it? Often as we face the storms of life, our excitement wanes for the things of Christ.  But have we stopped to consider the purpose of our storm?  Had it not been for the tempestuous waves the disciples faced, that demoniac could have never seen a man calm a storm.  Had it not been for the illness of that seaman, the light of a porthole could have never illuminated a drowning man.  Rather than pursue immediate escape,  pray to be an instrumental example.  Someone is watching.  Who’s logline will you help rewrite?