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"If you need a synonym for plot twist, try peripety."

 

A thought by Max Lucado, from his book, You Were Made for This Moment (p. 131). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.  (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

A what?


Max continues, "It’s a literary device that describes a redirected storyline. It’s that moment in the book that causes you to stay up past your bedtime because you can’t believe what just happened."

He later says, "Are your days marked by mourning, fasting, weeping, and lamenting? Does the promise of a reversal seem too distant, too remote?

"Maybe an illness has taken its toll. Sorrow has taken your joy. Maybe you live under the shadow of a Haman. You report to a self-centered creep. Your elected officials are out of touch with reality. You are married to a spouse who isn’t the same spouse you married. Your skin color isn’t the accepted color of your culture.

"The struggles of life have pilfered the life out of your life, and you don’t know where to turn. You’ve been disappointed so many times. And you are so very, very tired."

He says, "If that is you, I’m sorry. I truly am. It stinks, I know. But I urge you—with every ounce of energy I can muster, I urge you—don’t give in to despair. The anaconda of hopelessness will squeeze the life out of you. You can’t give up. You just can’t. There is too much at stake.

"Your Bible invites you to believe in a coming peripety. 

  • Abraham and Sarah were old and barren one day and then saucer-eyed and pregnant the next. Peripety. 
  • Joseph went to sleep one night as an Egyptian prisoner. He went to sleep the next night as the Egyptian prime minister. Peripety. 
  • The Red Sea was uncrossable one minute and a pathway the next. Peripety. 
  • Joshua marched seven times around the city of Jericho. After the sixth circle the walls were standing. After the seventh they were rubble. Peripety. 
  • Goliath defied Israel for forty days. But then David loaded a peripety in his sling and let it fly. Down went the giant. 
  • The 450 prophets of Baal mocked Jehovah, but then Elijah prayed, and a fire-filled peripety fell from heaven. 
  • The lions wanted to eat Daniel one moment, but they couldn’t open their mouths the next. Their jaws were wired shut with divine peripety."

He then says, "Do you sense the rhythm? In God’s hands no script is predictable, no story line is inevitable, no outcome is certain. He is ever a turn of the page from a turn-on-a-dime turnaround. For heaven’s sake look in the Bethlehem barn. Who saw this coming? Or better asked, who saw him coming? God sleeping in a feed trough, still moist from Mary’s womb. He held the universe in one moment and squeezed Mary’s pinkie the next.

"He is the God of grand reversals."

So have you found that true yet? Well, He is! Yes, yes! #continuethought 

 


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