84% of the story has yet to be revealed - part 1

Once when my father-in-law visited a few years ago, he was reading a murder mystery novel on his Kindle reading device. After only a short time, he stated, "Well, there is no need to finish this book.  I already know who did it."

"How much have you read?" I asked.  "How far are you into the story?"

He looked down at the device.  "Sixteen percent.  But the ending is pretty obvious."

As a writer I know that appearances don't necessarily reflect what is really going on.  That is part of the intrigue of a great tale.  All of the divergent and seemingly unrelated threads come together in the course of an epic story.

"What happens is not always so evident ahead of time," I said.  

The reality was that he still had a LONG way to go in that story.  Things can change radically from one chapter to the next.  New information is discovered, another layer is revealed, and the truth somehow comes to the surface.

 "What if the policeman did it? Or what if the murderer is the policeman's SON?" I teased him with my own absurd imagination. 

I returned to making supper.

My father-in-law didn't budge from that chair for almost two days.  And when he did, he exclaimed, "How did you know it was his son?"

Good guess.

But this much I do understand:   When we are only in the middle of the story, we cannot know the outcome.

And because we have a long way to go in our own narrative, a lot of other things can enter the picture.  And most significantly, God redeems in incredible ways.

"The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect," notes Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest.

He is before all things,
    and in Him,
all things hold together.

                 Colossians 1. 17

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.