We deeply resonate with a narrative that leaves us hopeful, and a better ending than we imagined.

And that is certainly true of our own lives.

But anybody who’s been a Christian long enough knows that, inevitably, there is a tension between the plan we envision for ourselves and the plan God has for us.

So, then, how are we to navigate the uncomfortable reality that the Rolling Stones warned us about: you can’t always get what you want.

Can we ultimately trust God’s story for us? Can we be confident that the Lord’s pen makes no mistakes?

Plot Twists

God is most easily trusted when our will is being done — when everything is going according to our plan.

We tend to lull ourselves into this lackadaisical mindset that God is on our side and won’t do anything to shake things up.

And then it comes: the dreaded plot twist that upheaves our world and plans. 

The rejection letter from the school. The job layoff. The breakup. The health issues. The martial tension and trials. The rebellious and wayward child. The business closing down. The financial troubles. The death of a loved one.

Life takes a turn for the worst, and we are shell-shocked.

Dark clouds loom over our days, and we worry and wonder if, perhaps, there’s been some sort of misstep or miscalculation. Surely this isn’t how things are supposed to go, right?

In the present moment, we often hate the script and the plot twist[s] God gives us only because we don’t know what the next chapters hold in store for us. 

We desperately pray for the current chapter to end on a good note — and by that, we usually mean things going the way we want them to.

What we see as a disaster or punishment, God sees as pruning and preparation for a better blessing.

So what if the Lord’s plan is better than we could’ve asked for?

What if the plot twists — however painful they may be — are invitations to trust Christ more deeply and intimately?

More Than We Ask

In one of the more remarkable verses in all of Scripture, the Apostle Paul reveals a powerful and comforting truth: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us”[Ephesians 3:20].

Paul taps into something uniquely beautiful about prayer: God is a lot smarter than us and is already working to do extraordinary things beyond our current comprehension. 

In other words, God [who is willing and able] can and will help His children.

So what are we to make of all the unanswered prayers and hours spent pleading before God only to receive a no or deafening silence?

On the topic of unanswered prayer, Greg Morse beautifully says:

We faint before the silent heavens, not because God is unable, but because we are too unwise to know why his silence is a mercy.

Greg echoes what the psalmist tells us: “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly” [Psalm 84:11].

Sometimes, for our good and betterment, God takes away or withholds something from us — not out of cruelty or malice, but love. 

In his best-selling book, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Tim Keller states, “God will either give us what we ask or what we would have asked if we knew everything He knew.”

Think about what he’s saying. Think about how freeing and comforting that truth is.

Keller brilliantly encourages us that the Lord will assuredly answer our prayers — it just might look a little or a lot different than we expected, but nonetheless, it is still good.

God writes a better story than we can think or imagine. 

We can look to the past to see God’s faithfulness, and it gives us gratitude for the present moment and, eventually, hope for the future He has planned for us. 

Admittedly, we would not willingly choose the paths we are often forced to take. 

But the headaches and heartaches we encounter are no accidents, so we are safe to assume that somehow [and someway] God plans to bring about good and glory from it all.

Elisabeth Elliot reminds us that:

God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful — “severe mercies” at times but mercies all the same. God never denies our heart’s desire except to give us something better.

Jesus is in the business of writing good and glory-filled stories, beauty out of the brokenness, and redemption out of the ruins; the Lord’s pen doesn’t make mistakes. 

And our understanding, or lack thereof, is not the precondition upon which Christ will do something more than we think or ask.

We can trust that, in the end, our stories are wrapped up in God’s ultimate redemption narrative.

I type these words as someone who has been broken, beaten, and battered by the trials and plot twists of life, but here I stand: a man who firmly trusts God more than I trust myself.

Every Christian story includes wounds and scars, goals sent to the gallows, and dreams denied or deferred, and yet our stories are jam-packed with the redemptive grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

In the end, I suspect we shall reach heaven and see the tapestry of our lives and what God was up to all along, and we shall agree that His story was far more beautiful and better than we could’ve envisioned on our own.

In short, we shall have no notes. God has written a better story for us — even if it doesn’t make sense to us right now.