The movie ‘Taken’ and the reckless raging fury that we call the love of God.
Wow. I just got done watching the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson. Talk about a story that speaks eternal truth – this movie has it loud and clear! A friend of mine recommended this movie a while back and told me to watch it in this context: see the father character as our Heavenly Father and what he has done to rescue us. I am blown away by the symbolism in this movie! About halfway through, my wife said to me, “How many people is he going to kill?” to which I replied, “As many as it takes to get his...
read moreJehovah Raphah
I was reading about one of God’s names in the Old Testament, Jehovah Rapha, which means, “The Lord our Healer” and I had to ask myself, do I really believe that God heals? I’m not talking about physical sickness (a whole topic in and of itself), but spiritual and emotional sickness. I notice that I tend to believe, at least on an intellectual level, that God indeed heals all wounds. And I’ve come to accept this especially when it comes to the mortal wounds in my life (those that would kill me spiritually). I...
read moreThe Shawshank Redemption: Three Lessons I Took with Me…
It has been a habit of mine lately to try and process a movie after I watch it. To analyze parts of it, to see if I can extract the eternal truths that shine through any good story. Tonight I watched The Shawshank Redemption. It strikes me that there are three themes that resonate with me from this movie. First… Attitude is crucial to our lives. What is your attitude toward your circumstances? Are you ready to hang your hat on hope or despair? As the movie so famously asks, are you ready to “get busy living” or are you ready...
read moreBuying Books isn’t the same as Reading Books
I’ve noticed lately that I have an obsession with buying books. I buy them, and add them to my collection, and it gives me a brief sense of accomplishment. Then I realize, “Hey – I’m not reading all these books that I’m adding to my collection, in fact, I’m reading very few of them!” It’s just an interesting habit I noticed. Obviously we live in a society that is all about getting a “quick fix” to just about any conundrum we face. When I face the conundrum of not having “enough...
read moreTwo more movies…two more lessons…
Tonight I watched Legend of the Guardians, you know, the movie with the animated fighting owls. It was actually pretty good. It made me want to read the books. It also had some interesting story lines in it and eternal truths that shone through. One of those was about the harsh realities of war. One quote stood out for me, it was from one of the old warriors, the hero in an old legend, who spoke about the realities of fighting in battle: “It’s not glorious, it’s not beautiful, it’s not even heroic....
read moreAn Eternal Truth from I Robot: The Heart is Essential!
I just finished watching I Robot. I’d seen it before, but this time I was intentionally looking for a message to take away from the movie. Most stories speak eternal truths whether they mean to or not, and I easily found one. The best line of the movie came between the two robots VIKI and Sonny. VIKI has decided to take away the free will of mankind because they are too destructive toward themselves and toward the existence of robots. Sonny is rushing to destroy VIKI to prevent her from essentially enslaving all of...
read moreA Conversation with God about (GASP!) Lust.
Do you ever just sit down and have a conversation with God? I don’t do it nearly enough. I had the opportunity this last weekend to do just that in the midst of a battle with temptation. I don’t remember exactly how I worded it, but essentially the question I asked God was, “How are we supposed to do this? Why do I struggle with sexual temptation at times? What is it about women that sometimes creates such inner conflict within me?” It was pretty cool because I was able to turn my struggles over to God in...
read moreSelf Rejection
So I’m reading (or rather listening to) a book by Brennan Manning called “Abba’s Child.” … I first heard of Manning nearly ten years ago when researching the life of song writer/musician Rich Mullins (who’s music I came to love because of my dear friend and spiritual mentor Seth Loyd who was seemingly obsessed with Mullins when I was in college at Iowa State). … I read “The Raggamuffin Gospel” a few years ago and would heartily recommend it. My friend Ron Z. suggested I pick up “Abba’s Child” after we had a...
read moreHello blogosphere…
Hi. I’m back. I hope to be able to update this blog from time to time with thought provoking comments… or at the very least some random musings. “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” - Proverbs 29:20 I have been thinking about re-opening my blog for a long time. It’s been very difficult to keep my mouth shut these last couple of years. I like to write. I like to share opinions. Sometimes though, my words have been foolish. I think this verse in Proverbs speaks...
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