“What do you mean Paul Bunyan didn’t carve out the Great Lakes?” I shouted at a science show on the Smithsonian Channel we were watching the other day. “I can’t believe it. Everyone knows he did.” The show asserted some other method that had to do with time and ice. Just like everyone knows that Johnny Appleseed planted all the apple trees in America, and George Washington never told a lie.

My thoughtful husband replied, “Calm down. We all know it’s true, but the Smithsonian has its reputation to think about.”

As a child who believed in Santa long past the acceptable age, I still have that tendency to hang on to stories and myths—now morphed into clichés and truisms—as a way of explaining the unexplainable, that Paul Bunyan thing notwithstanding. Folklore can be a beautiful thing.

Christianity has its own folklore in the form of heroic truths of the past repeated so many times that we begin to think these little proverbs (not from Proverbs) are actually Christian truths. Matt Smethurst (guest speaker at the Community Sunday of the Fall Missions Festival) posted an article on The Gospel Coalition site back in 2017 titled, “5 Christian Clichés that Need to Die.” Here are Matt's top five:

When God closes a door, he opens a window.
You’re never more safe than when you’re in God’s will.
Let go and let God.
God will not give you more than you can handle.
God helps those who help themselves.

Apparently, these clichés are experiencing a slow death. But not slow enough for Matt or for me.

Take the first cliché. I don't think God is running around closing doors and opening windows when we pray. I’d rather share “open window” answers to prayer than, sigh, no, God hasn't answered that prayer. But God hears the sighs of how long, Lord, how long, and he answers, don't be anxious. Look out that open window to the birds of the air. Seek me.

The third cliché on Matt's list is the opposite of what God wants us to do. Instead of letting go, we are to hold fast and cling to him. Run to him for refuge and hide under his wings. Trust him and do good no matter what. Perseverance is not letting go.

The second and fourth clichés go together for me. Never more safe than when you’re in God’s will? That one would be a hard sell for believers in Nigeria, North Korea, Indonesia, Somalia or Myanmar. And, sorry to disappoint, but God will give you more than you can handle. “Dear friends,” wrote The Apostle Peter, “don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12, NLT)

That last cliché? Help comes from Jesus for the utterly helpless and hopeless. Consider one Scripture passage: Romans 5:6-8. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Like legends, these Christian clichés try to explain the unexplainable whether it’s unanswered prayer or suffering or God himself. We want to be in the know, the ones in charge, but we're not. Once we stop trying to explain how we think God should work, we will be awestruck that the Lord, seated on high, looks far down on earth, and “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.” (Psalm 113:6-7)

I once researched Johnny Appleseed for an article I wrote for a children’s magazine. The real Johnny Appleseed was a man named John Chapman, who planted apple orchards as he traveled from Pennsylvania to Indiana. He was also a businessman and missionary who helped make peace between native Americans and white settlers.

Sometimes the real person is better than the legend. And the one true God is better than all we can think or imagine or squeeze into a cliché.