Tuesday, April 8, 2014

GOD'S NOT DEAD, I'VE SEEN HIM AT WORK


 

 Yesterday Jim and I went to see the movie, “God’s Not Dead”.  The movie is about a college freshman who shows up on his first day of philosophy class and right off the bat has his Christian faith challenged by his professor.  The professor, an atheist, begins the class by asking each student to write “God is dead” on a piece of paper, with their signature, so that they can dispense with that “myth” and conduct the class from an atheistic perspective.  The young freshman will not write and sign a statement which, for him, was not true.  And so his very unhappy professor challenges him to spend twenty minutes in each of the next three classes attempting to prove his own point that God is NOT dead.

Jim and I really enjoyed the movie.  The young man did a great job of standing before the professor and his peers to prove his point, and of course, we were rooting for him.

One of the themes running through the movie, not only for the freshman, but for other characters as well, is the truth that claiming to be a committed follower of Jesus will cost you something, sometimes that something will be BIG.  For the main character, the stand he took for his faith threatened the future he had planned for himself.  For another, it cost the love and protection of her family.  For a third, it cost the loss of a friend.  The cost of following Jesus is one He Himself pointed out.  Sometimes we’re just so anxious for people to come to Jesus and know the blessings, that we neglect to tell them that there is also a cost.  The movie didn’t sugar coat this.

On the other hand, as with some books I’ve read by Christian authors, this film had a “too good to be true” quality about it.  By the end of the movie, the freshman wins over his entire class.  A pastor leads a tough guy to faith, and everyone lives happily ever after.

I was thinking about the great works of God this film portrays as I drove to a women’s study this morning.  At first I was a bit whiny about why the real life evidence of God’s power isn’t always as wonderful as this movie.  I’ve been praying for and talking to people close to me about Jesus for years and not one so far has come to faith.  But then I was thinking how this was a movie.  It was based on facts, but those facts didn’t all necessarily happen at the same time or in the same way as the movie portrayed them.  I’m sure those who wrote the screenplay took some liberties in pulling together different events and then putting them ALL in the same movie.

I was thinking about how much I long to have the Lord work in that obvious, awesome way in MY life, in REAL life, as it did in that movie.  As the morning went on, in that quiet way that the Lord often has, He tapped me on the shoulder and opened my eyes to see the importance of what He WAS up to in my own life just this week.

One of my current “God” opportunities is to teach middle school Sunday school.  Teaching middle school kids was not an assignment I would normally have volunteered to do. It’s been a really long time since I’ve worked with this bunch! 

If you know an 11-13 year old, or have one living with you, then you know what they’re like.  They are full of energy, especially verbal energy!  I’m thinking that for most of them, as soon as their feet hit the floor in the morning, they’re talking – incessantly!   Put a few of them together and a verbal free for all is what you get.  At the same time these non-stop talkers are inquisitive, bright, insightful, curious, full of enthusiasm, great listeners, and the BEST group to teach – once you can get them to stop talking, of course!  After morning coffee with my husband, they are the first group I meet on Sunday morning and I can’t WAIT!

You know what I discovered this week as we made our way through a lesson from Mark’s gospel?  God is at work in those kids!  As they engage with the Scriptures they ask thought provoking questions that keep this teacher on her toes.  They grapple with faith issues, even more perhaps than some adults.  Some are curious enough that they go home and pour over the Bible to do some investigating on their own (can you believe it?). 

In my real life I may not get to see the ultimate outcome.  I may never have the privilege, as the pastor in the movie, to lead one of these kids to Jesus in class, but that doesn’t mean God is not working in power in those inquisitive minds, and open hearts, bringing them to faith in Jesus.  

Then there was the phone call I made yesterday.  A church friend asked me to call her friend.  This friend, about my age, had been asked to teach a Sunday school class of high school girls and she was not sure at all how to proceed.  In the course of our conversation, in which I described what I do with middle schoolers, and how responsive they are and how they bless me week in and week out, we found ourselves getting excited together at what the Lord has in store for her and her class.  Maybe not as exciting as the movie, but evidence that the Lord is at work in my ordinary, and her ordinary, lives getting us excited at what He’s up to!

Then today, at our women’s group, we had special visitors.  A nearby home which ministers to women battling alcoholism and addictions came with their choir to bless us with their singing and testimonies.  Through the lives of these women, all ages and backgrounds, we could see the Lord at work, transforming women by the life and power of Jesus. 

One after another they told their real life stories of redemption – redemption from sin and death, redemption from a life of self-destruction, redemption of their past to lives of productivity and dreams for the future – all through faith in Jesus.  God is at work in them – in many ways as dramatically as in the movie.

I haven’t seen them recently, but a couple of years ago when I was driving, I’d occasionally see one of these little green plastic men on a suburban sidewalk, holding a sign that said, “Children at play”.  These little guys, probably put there by parents, were reminders to us drivers to slow down and keep our eyes open for kids.

When I’m tempted to think that the Lord isn’t working in my real life, as compared to a movie, I need one of those little green men with a different sign, to remind me:  “Slow down, open your eyes, God IS at work!”

And then I need to walk by faith in what I cannot YET see.  GOD IS AT WORK!

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Hebrews 11:1

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