Dan B. Allender - To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future

This is a book worth reading. Because this is a journey worth taking. To know who you are. To make sense of your life. To discover the role God is giving you in his story. That is a life worth living. Thank you, Dan, for a wonderful book!

J OHN E LDREDGE , best-selling author of Wild at Heart and Epic: The Story God Is Telling and the Role That Is Yours to Play

Dan Allenders books brim and sizzle with storiesmany poignant, many hilarious, and many both. This book takes us to the deepest stories of allour own stories, the ones that haunt when they are kept secret and liberate when they are told and known. To Be Told is a treasure to be read slowly and with your closest friends.

B RIAN M C L AREN , pastor and author of A Generous Orthodoxy and A New Kind of Christian

The concepts in this book have helped define my life in magnificent ways. By further exploring my own story, I discovered Gods story. And it is a beautiful picture of clarity, purpose, knowledge, and celebration. Thank you, God, for giving us Dan Allender.

K ATHY T ROCCOLI , singer, speaker, and author

When Dan Allender tells stories, prepare for three things: laughter, tears, and piercing insight. Allender is a great storyteller because he knows that stories are for redeeming, not just for passing the time. This book, about story and full of stories, will help you find your own place in the greatest story ever told.

D ANIEL T AYLOR , author of Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories

Dan Allender confronts us with the truth that we are storied people, that each of us is a story, and that we are in fact writing our own stories. With humor and grace, Dan invites us not only to write our stories metaphorically but literally to begin to write our stories. He promises that in so doing we might just possibly find God, with whom we are coauthoring our stories, and we might actually connect in vital and healing ways with ourselves and with each other.

S TANLEY J. G RENZ , author of Rediscovering the Triune God and A Primer on Postmodernism

In To Be Told, Dan Allender creates an intimate, safe place where we feel free to join in the discussion and dive, with a sort of careless courage, headfirst into our own stories. I wept as I rediscovered the sacred and divine in my own story, and began to find the connections between my own story threads, an understanding of my long-aching need to be heard, and the glimmers of a holy redemption.

R ENEE A LTSON , author of Stumbling Toward Faith

Dan Allender calls us to recognize that our lives, which often seem random, have a brilliant, divine coherence. Under his expert tutelage we discover how to discern Gods hand on our lives and how to tell the story to ourselves and others.

T REMPER L ONGMAN III, author of How to Read the Psalms and coauthor of The Cry of the Soul and Bold Love

To B E T OLD
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
2375 Telstar Drive, Suite 160
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920
A division of Random House, Inc.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( KJV ) are taken from the King James Version. Scripture quotations marked ( NASB ) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org.) Scripture quotations marked ( NIV ) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Copyright 2005 by Dr. Dan B. Allender

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer design logo are registered trademarks of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allender, Dan B.
To be told : know your story, shape your life / Dan B. Allender. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-307-45721-9
1. Christian life. I. Title.
BV4501.3.A46 2005
248.4dc22

2004022768

v3.1_r1

To:
Jo Ann Bope Allender

V

Being of My Beginning
Life Giving
Love Offering
Mother

There are many makers of this book, just as there are many who have written my story. To fail to name is not in this case the same as a failure to remember. To name is to confess the indelible mark of gratitude, and to these kind souls I say:

Matt Baugher, my agent: What laughter, wisdom, and sweet care you endlessly offer. Thank you.

Ron Lee, my editor: Your kindness and erudition weave a stronger voice than I can offer on my own.

Don Pape, my publisher: Bold man, you do not live finally for the dollar but for the hint of divinity.

Linda Busse and Samantha Graham, bosses of the office: Your departure is an ache and your care a provision of some of the greatest goodness of my life.

Allyson Baker, wise guide: By your deep belief and care for my soul, youve called me countless times to fly to the face of God.

Colleagues and board at Mars Hill Graduate School: What a wonder of a story weve been called to create! Thank you for the ride of my life.

Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland: What gracious hosts to let me speak this book before it was fully formed.

Esther Project: Women of valor, partners in crime, wise and dangerous friends, thank you for reading and calling me to participate in a story beyond my dreams and fears.

Elizabeth Turnage: Oh, what a surprising and gracious gift of writing each others lives for glory.