Trials remedy fictional escapism. Trials are the onrush of stinging realism crashing the idealized party we call “life.” When these serious trials interrupt our lives, we “run simply and immediately to our all-sufficient Friend, feel our dependence, and cry in good earnest for help.” But when all is well, when life seems peaceful and prosperous, and when the difficulties in life are small, then “we are too apt secretly to lean to our own wisdom and strength, as if in such slight matters we could make shift without him.”56 We lose out on communion with Christ when we gorge on entertainment.
