What Does the Bible Say About the Stories We Tell Ourselves?

The short answer: Everyone tells themselves a story about who they are, what they are worth, and what is happening in their life. The Bible takes those stories seriously. Pain often distorts the story we tell ourselves, and Scripture is the corrective. The way to know if the story you are telling is true is to test it against Scripture, against your behavior, against trusted community, and against the gospel.

The problem is that the stories we tell ourselves are not always true. And the more pain we have experienced, the more likely it is that the story is distorted.

This article is adapted from the sermon, Remember, preached by Dr. Scott Lehr at Southbridge Fellowship on Sunday, June 7, 2026. 

1. Pain rewrites the story

Pain narrows our vision. It causes us to filter every new experience through the lens of the old wound. We start interpreting God's character through our pain instead of interpreting our pain through God's character.

The Bible takes the stories we tell ourselves seriously. 1 Peter 1 is built on this exact pastoral move. Peter is writing to people whose suffering has begun to rewrite the story they tell about themselves. They are tempted to believe they are forgotten. That their faith was a mistake. That nothing they do matters.

Peter's response is to retell them the true story. Their salvation is something the prophets searched for and angels long to understand. They were purchased with the blood of Christ. They are holy, chosen, set apart. The story they have been telling themselves is not the true one.

2. how to know if your story is true

So how do you know if the story you are telling yourself is true? Here are four tests.

test it against scripture

The Word of God is the most reliable anchor we have. If your story contradicts what God has said about Himself, about you, or about the world, the story is the problem.

Peter quotes Isaiah 40 at the end of his first chapter. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Every temporary thing will expire. The Word of God will not.

test it against your behavior

The way you live reveals the story you actually believe, not just the story you say you believe. If your behavior is anxious, defensive, or hopeless, there is probably a story underneath that needs to be examined.

test it against community

People who know you and love you and walk with God can often see the story you are telling more clearly than you can. This is part of why isolation is so spiritually dangerous. It leaves you alone with a story that has no one to challenge it.

test it against the gospel

If the story you are telling about yourself ends with "I am too broken" or "I am too far gone" or "there is no hope for me," that story is not the gospel. The gospel says you were dead and made alive, lost and found, far off and brought near. Any story that ends in finality without redemption is not the Christian story.

3. the story god tells about you is bigger

You are not just the sum of what has happened to you. You are not just the conclusions you have drawn from your pain. The story God tells about you is bigger, truer, and more hopeful than the one you have been telling yourself. And the closer you get to His Word, the easier it becomes to tell the difference.

Watch and Keep Reading

Watch or listen to the full sermon, Remember, preached by Dr. Scott Lehr at Southbridge Fellowship on Sunday, June 7, 2026. 

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