The Stories We Tell: How Conversation Shapes Our Faith
Imagine walking seven miles in scorching desert heat. You've just witnessed the worst three days of your life. Your hope has been shattered. The person you believed would change everything is dead, and you watched it happen. You're exhausted, grieving, trying to make sense of it all.
Now imagine that after finally reaching your destination, something so extraordinary happens that you immediately turn around and walk seven more miles—fourteen miles total—just to tell someone about it.
What could possibly be that important?
This is exactly what happened to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and their story reveals a profound truth about faith that we often overlook: what we talk about shapes what we believe, and the stories we tell determine the God we see.
The Power of Conversation
In Luke 24, we find two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, deeply engaged in conversation about the events surrounding Jesus's crucifixion. They're not casually chatting—they're processing grief, confusion, and shattered expectations. They speak some of the saddest words in Scripture: "We had hoped he was the one."
Past tense. Hope lost.
While they're talking, Jesus himself joins them on the road, though they don't recognize him. He opens the Scriptures to them, and something remarkable happens—their hearts begin to burn within them. Later, when they break bread together, their eyes are opened, they recognize him, and immediately he vanishes.
But the story doesn't end there.
Despite having walked at least seven miles that day in intense heat, despite it being dark, despite their exhaustion, they get up "that same hour" and walk seven more miles back to Jerusalem. They find the disciples and their companions and begin telling them what happened.
And here's where it gets beautiful: "While they were still speaking, Jesus himself stood among them."
Three Times: A Pattern We Cannot Ignore
Luke is deliberate in showing us this pattern three times within the same chapter:

1. While they were talking about Jesus on the road, he appeared and walked with them
2. While they were speaking with him at the table, they recognized him in the breaking of bread
3. While they were telling the story to others, Jesus stood among them again

The connection is unmistakable: conversation and presence are deeply intertwined.
An Ancient Command, A Modern Truth
This principle isn't new. Centuries before, Moses stood on the banks of the Jordan and gave the Israelites their marching orders for entering the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy, he commanded them: "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise."
Moses wasn't just asking for intellectual assent. He was calling for constant conversation—morning, evening, at home, away. Why? Because he understood something that modern neuroscience now confirms: what we talk about shapes what we think about, and what we think about determines what we pay attention to.
What We Pay Attention to Becomes What We Treasure
Consider this simple exercise: Look around the room and identify everything that's red. Really focus on it. Now close your eyes and try to name everything that's green.
Most people draw a blank, even when there are more green items than red ones in the room. Why? Because our brains prioritize what we've been told to focus on. What we pay attention to most, our brains interpret as what matters most.
This has profound implications for faith.
Our children and grandchildren learn what matters most to us not primarily through what we say we believe, but through what we actually talk about. If the five people closest to us had to testify under oath about what we discuss most often, what would they say?
Would they mention sports? Money? Politics? Stress? Other people who frustrate us?
And here's the crucial question: Would anything they mention have to do with our faith?
The Practice of Presence
Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century friar who spent forty years washing dishes in a monastery kitchen, discovered a life-changing truth: the more he talked about God and to God, the more aware he became of God's presence.
Not that God moved closer—Scripture tells us God is already with us, among us, within us through the Holy Spirit. But Brother Lawrence's awareness changed. His attention shifted. He gave one of the most beautiful definitions ever written: "The presence of God is the concentration of the soul's attention to God."
God doesn't hide from us. We simply fail to notice because we're concentrating on everything else.
The Stories Waiting to Be Told
Here's what makes the Emmaus story so powerful: those disciples didn't just have an encounter with Jesus and move on. They could have gone to bed, woken up the next day, and returned to ordinary life. Instead, they chose to tell the story.
And because they told it, they didn't just talk about meeting Jesus earlier that day in past tense. While they were still speaking, Jesus stood among them in present tense. The story wasn't just remembered—it was relived. The resurrection wasn't just recalled—it was experienced again.
What if the same is true for us?
What if those powerful, life-transforming moments with Jesus that we long for aren't missing—they're just waiting to be told?
Where Your Treasure Is
Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." What we treasure most shapes what we believe most. And how do we know what we treasure? Listen to what we talk about.
The invitation isn't to become obnoxious or force conversations where they don't belong. It's about faithful sharing in the ordinary moments of life—at dinner tables, during car rides, on front porches, in everyday conversations.
It's about asking ourselves: Do the people closest to us ever hear us talk about experiencing God's grace? About how God provided when we didn't see a way? About when we needed to ask for forgiveness? About the ways we've seen Christ at work?
If they don't, what do they conclude about what matters most to us?
The God We See
The resurrection is certainly something to believe in, but we can't stop there. It's something to talk about. Because what we talk about most becomes what we treasure most. What we treasure most is where our hearts will be found. And the concentration of our hearts determines whether we recognize Christ among us.
The stories we choose to tell will determine the God we see.
So what story are you telling today? And who needs to hear it?

The Resurrection Was Never Meant to Be Experienced Alone
The stone had been rolled in front of the tomb. Hope appeared to be sealed away forever.
When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary made their way to Jesus' tomb that first Easter morning, they weren't walking with anticipation or joy. They were trudging through grief. These women had staked everything on Jesus—their lives, their future, their hope. They had been there when he died, witnessing the brutality of the cross in ways the disciples hadn't. They saw the stone seal the tomb, and with it, they believed their hope was sealed away too.
They came that morning out of duty, out of love, to prepare his body for burial. The silence of their journey must have been deafening.
And then everything changed.
An earthquake. An angel descending. Guards shaking and falling. And words that would literally alter the course of human history: "He is not here, for he has been raised."
The angel didn't just announce the news—he invited them to verify it. "Come see the place where he lay." Then he commissioned them: "Go quickly and tell his disciples."
Matthew 28 tells us they didn't walk from that tomb. They didn't stroll or casually make their way back. They ran—with fear and great joy—to announce what they had seen and heard.
Moments Too Big to Carry Alone
There are certain moments in life that are simply too significant to experience in isolation. They're too overwhelming, too life-altering, too transformative to keep to ourselves. When something truly monumental happens, our first instinct is to share it—to call someone, to run to someone, to make sure we're not experiencing it alone.
Think about the moments that have shaped your life. A proposal. The birth of a child. Devastating loss. Unexpected victory. These moments demand to be shared because experiencing them alone somehow diminishes them. We need witnesses. We need people who can help us process, who can celebrate with us, who can grieve alongside us.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of a moment too big to experience alone.
Designed for Community
What's striking about the resurrection accounts across all four gospels is how communal they are. The women went together. They left together. They worshiped together. They announced the news together. Even in John's account where Mary initially appears alone at the tomb, she immediately runs to tell Peter and John.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples gathered together, to two walking the Emmaus road, to the eleven in a locked room, and according to Paul, to over 500 people at once.
From the very beginning, it took more than one person to recognize Jesus. It took more than one to bear witness. It took more than one to actually live in the way his resurrection called them to live.
By herself, Mary might have questioned what she heard. Peter might have been consumed by the shame of his denial. Thomas was overcome with doubt. But together, what they might have rationalized away individually, they could not deny collectively.
This tells us something profound: we can believe in the resurrection alone, but we cannot become who the resurrection calls us to be alone.
The Difference Between Easter and Resurrection
Easter is a beautiful holiday. It's a day of bright colors, special music, family gatherings, and celebratory meals. It's a time to dress up, to fill our churches, to sing a little louder. Easter is something we gather to remember.
But the resurrection was always meant to be more than a holiday.
The resurrection is a completely new reality. It's something we go to live. A holiday lasts a day; the resurrection was meant to reshape every single day that follows.
The resurrection isn't just something to celebrate or receive. It's something we experience together in order to become the new creation it calls us to be.
The Lesson of Isolation
Six years ago, the world learned this truth in an unexpected way. Easter Sunday 2020 arrived during a global pandemic. Churches were empty. Pastors preached to cameras. Families gathered around kitchen tables instead of sanctuary pews. The decorations were the same. The gospel accounts were read. The resurrection hymns were sung. The theology was identical.
But it felt completely different.
A four-year-old named Parker captured what everyone was feeling when he said, "This is weird. I know it's Easter, but it doesn't feel like it."
Out of the mouths of babes came a profound truth: the resurrection was always intended to be shared.
It's too big, too overwhelming, too life-changing to carry alone. Jesus himself said, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in their midst." Not because he's absent when we're alone—he's always with us—but because when we come together, his presence becomes tangible in a different way.
When we carry one another's burdens, when we sing together and pray together and hope together, the resurrection moves from something we believe in to something we actually experience.
Living the Resurrection
Acts 2:46-47 tells us that the early church "day by day spent much time together, and the Lord added to their numbers those who were being saved." The resurrection wasn't just celebrated on that first Sunday morning and then filed away as a nice memory. It became a new way to live, a new way to forgive, a new way to suffer, a new way to hope.
But before the early Christians could live that new way, they had to experience the power of it. And experiencing required sharing it with people just like them—people who needed encouragement, who needed accountability, who needed hope to be more than just an ideal but to actually be embodied in flesh and blood.
Being together is a wonderful way to celebrate Easter. But more importantly, being together is how we actually experience the resurrection.
The Story Continues
The crowds will fade. The music will quiet. The holiday will pass. But the resurrection won't be over.
What God the Father started on that first Easter morning through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is still happening today. That hope literally has the power to change us. And by changing us, it has the power to change the world.
But first, it's a hope we have to do more than receive. It's a hope we actually must experience. And experiencing happens best when we share it together.
The tomb is empty. Hope is not just an ideal or a desire. As those women learned on that first Easter morning, hope is literally alive. And that's not just something to understand or remember or celebrate—because the story of that hope has not yet ended.
It continues in us, together.

Check out this recent WXFR article about Emma Little and her family!
https://www.wfxrtv.com/video/allergic-to-the-sun-roanoke-family-raises-awareness-on-daughters-rare-condition/8417393/?fbclid=IwAR00OOT2Xml5RilZgRxxSYiH-SloXk0SGaNs7rIs2lZ1-S3gzJYRgWquZLg