Life imitating art

I think we’d all agree that chick flicks have a lot to answer for; women’s unrealistic expectations of men, wasted man hours in cinemas filled with weepy women, Channing Tatum’s career… and ridiculous plot devices that cause one to leap up and yell at the TV “why don’t you just tell the other person what you are thinking?  What’s wrong with you?”  

I was reading a book lately called Scumble which employed this very plot device.  The main character met a girl who wanted to visit him at his uncle’s house but he didn’t want her to meet his family because they had secret superhuman powers.  So she ends up sneaking into his family wedding and instead of exposing her and revealing her to the family, issue resolved, end of story, short book; he hides the truth from his family because he fears their reactions to the news that he’d let her into the property.  And of course this one action prompts the rest of the story to happen, which made a longer and more interesting book; but the plot device still irritated me.  

 

I think it irritates me because it seems so unrealistic; no one acts like that.  In real life we act like adults and confess things to each other; work it out and move on with our lives don’t we?  But do we really?  Or is it more realistic that we do things (which may not even necessarily be wrong) but then we worry about what people will think of us if we revealed it to them and so we don’t tell them and one thing leads to another and before we know it we’ve made a big mess when there wasn’t one to begin with.  Life imitating art.  

One of the reasons we don’t confess the truth of our sinful or foolish behaviour to others or to God is because we fear some kind of punishment; the unknown reaction; what could they do to us?  So we hide it thinking that it’s better hidden because we won’t be punished then, and the sin and guilt grows.  The Bible tells us to freely confess our sins to God because there is now no fear of punishment from Him.  Because of Christ’s work for us we can confess our sins boldly any and every time of the day and know that we have received forgiveness from God.  Now because the only One whose opinion of us matters is pleased with us we can be free to risk the bad opinion of others by confessing our sin to them also.  We don’t have to live like a lame plot device.