From Eugene Peterson on Life Stories

“The reason that story is so basic to us is that life itself has narrative shape– a beginning and an end, plot and characters, conflict and resolution.  Life isn’t an accumulation of abstractions such as love and truth, sin and salvation, atonement and holiness; life is the realization of details that all connect organically, personally, specifically: names and fingerprints, street numbers and local weather, lamb for supper and a flat tire in the rain.  God reveals himself to us not in a metaphysical formulation or a cosmic fireworks display but in the kind of stories that we use to tell our children who they are and how to group as human beings…..Somewhere along the way, most of us pick up bad habits of extracting  from the bible what we pretentiously call “spiritual principles” or “moral guidelines,” or “theological truths,” and then corseting ourselves in them in order to force a godly shape on our lives.”