“Your story burns upon our hearts, a beautiful and binding scar, forever we will, forever will think of You…”
I think we all have that one memorable near-death experience story back from when we were kids.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly “near death,” but it sure did feel like it for most of us. For me, it was back when I was about 11 or 12. I was at a friend’s house for the day and we decided we were going to take our scooters and ride outside. This was right around the time when scooters were a big deal, and in fifth grade, you either had one or you didn’t …and you did not wanna be the kid who didn’t.

Two blocks down the road from my friend’s home, there was a giant, steep road, which was lovingly called “Death Hill.”(Paints quite the picture, doesn’t it?) Anyone who had the guts to ride down the hill on a bike, let alone a skateboard or a scooter, was considered a serious risk-taker. Being the insecure pre-teen that I was, I decided that I’d be a showoff and go down the hill on my scooter as fast as I possibly could.

As I revved up and thrust forward, I found myself quickly regretting my decision of going down this hill. I felt like a freight train going 100 mph with no brakes. The way the wind smacked against my face and hit hard against my eyes, I’m pretty sure the only thing I had on my mind was to whom I’d be leaving my scooter to after I’d died. Somehow--or I should say, by the grace of God--I made it down the hill alive and in one piece. My friends looked at me like I was insane, but I had conquered Death Hill, and I was proud.

I’d like to say this is where the story ends, but it’s not.

We scootered around the block several more times that day, talking about my daring feat when we reached the top of the giant steep hill once again. You’d think after one brush with Death Hill, I had enough. But it was almost like going on a roller coaster for the first time. It scares the heck out of you at first, but once it’s over, you want to do it again--which was exactly what I did.

Thrusting forward on my scooter for the second time, the familiar warm wind hit my face, only this time, the underlying fear that was there before was gone. As a matter of fact, I was feeling cocky. And that cockiness manifested itself with my recklessly swerving and riding on my scooter with one foot in the air. I thought, if I did it once, surely I could do it again. I thought wrong.

Before I knew it, the wheels on my scooter abruptly stopped beneath me, and I flew off of the thing like a leaf being tossed in the wind. With no helmet and no knee-pads, this was NOT going to be pretty.

At first, I was in more shock than pain, but when I looked down at my scraped elbow and bloodied knee, that’s when the pain became very real. I layed there in the middle of the street in tears, while my friends got a neighbor to drive us back to their house. Death Hill had beaten me, and proved once more why it had such a horrible-sounding name.

Thankfully, I had no broken bones or any serious injuries, but I did badly scrape up my knee. It was difficult for me to walk for a day or two after the accident, and on top of that, it wasn’t the prettiest scrape you’d ever seen. (Imagine a rainbow throwing up. I’m just being real, folks.)

It took nearly four or five months for it to fully heal, and to this day, I still have a scar on my knee from that fall. And while it’s nowhere close to being as ugly as it was when I first fell off my scooter nearly seven or eight years ago, it still remains.

Let’s pause here for a second and move ahead: I recently was listening to the song “We Remember” by Newsboys when the lyric abruptly jumped out at me: “Your story burns upon our hearts, a beautiful and binding scar.” I must have heard this song dozens of times before, but for some reason in that moment, that line hit me. As I thought about this, which I often do when a certain song lyric is fresh on my mind, I came to the realization that Christians need to live scarred lives.

When you think about it, scars symbolize something amazing. God created our bodies in such a way that we are fully capable of healing ourselves after getting hurt. Yet for some reason, there always will be marks of the incident, no matter how big or small it might have been. The very definition of the word scar is “a mark left after an effect or experience.”

Much like after we get hurt and our bodies shows the evidence of healing, so should the life of a believer. I think of the story of Jacob in Genesis 32, when he wrestled with God. It says during the fight that God touched the hip of Jacob and immediately his muscle shrank, and because of that, Jacob walked with a limp for the rest of his life. His life had a permanent “scar” from his encounter with God.

I think this paints such a beautiful picture of the scarred Christian life. After we give our lives to the Lord, they shouldn’t look the same anymore. The encounter we’ve had with God ought to leave a scar-like effect on our hearts that makes us live our lives differently then the way we were before--in a way that helps us to never forget what He has done for us.

Think of it this way, when you’re hurt badly, such as a bad cut or scrape, you don’t forget it. It’s something that affects your life, and whether the pain you feel is for a short or long period of time, the scar it leaves is permanent proof of the encounter you’ve had. It never goes away. It tells the world what you’ve been through. Just as a physical scar helps us to remember, so should a spiritual scar.

My challenge to all of you reading this today is simple: Allow God to permanently scar your life. Don’t let your Christianity become casual or numb, but begin to encounter God in a fresh way. Let the time you spend with Him be your “Death Hill” of sorts. Let it be what makes you remember all He has done for you and all He will continue to do. I can promise you, the scar effect it will leave on your life will forever change the way you walk spiritually, just as it did for Jacob physically.