That's Not The Whole Story

A fifteen-year-old boy was once told by his teacher that his dream of becoming a scientist was "quite ridiculous" — he kept that report framed above his desk for the rest of his life, right up through the day he won the Nobel Prize, as a reminder that a fact and a conclusion are not the same thing.

This message is for anyone who has quietly decided their story is already finished, and needs to hear that the part they can see isn't the whole picture.

This message follows the prophet Elijah from a mountaintop miracle straight into a cave, where exhaustion and fear convince him he's the only faithful person left in Israel, a belief God quietly corrects by pointing to seven thousand people Elijah never knew existed. It's an honest look at the sentences we repeat about ourselves long after we've stopped asking whether they're true — I always do this, nobody could love me, I'll never change.

Three practical steps are offered: pay attention to what you're actually telling yourself, put that belief to the test by separating what you know from what you've only assumed, and let someone else in on it, the way a phone call in a hotel lobby helped start Alcoholics Anonymous.