You know when you read a story, and it deeply inspires you or completely captivates your imagination, right? You can relate to the characters, people who, despite their defects, eventually learn from their mistakes, realize their hidden potential, and eventually become the hero. You discover a cohesive theme throughout the story that ties all the anecdotes together. You thrill at the adventure and suspense, causing you to wonder what on earth is going to happen next and how in the world could these tangled situations ever be resolved. You are surprised by plot twists along the way, shocking events that are completely unexpected. And of course, you love a happy ending when everything puzzling and inexplicable suddenly makes sense.
So what if part of the story was missing? Would you want to read a book with the words, Once upon a time . . . they lived happily ever after. Of course not. That’s not a story at all!
But that’s exactly what happens in real life when you only tell the good stuff. When you say, Praise the Lord! or God is so good! – the happily ever after part, but skip over the dark and the messy and the tragic and the impossible. When you leave out your character flaws and fears and heartaches and doubts. When you jump to the happy ending without ever explaining what you have learned along the way, or without describing the winding road you took to get this place.
