Next Three Days – Love of God

I just saw the newest Russell Crowe movie ‘Next Three Days’. It is a intense thriller. After watching the movie I drove around the 40 mile 610 loop, among other things, reflecting on the movie and how it depicts the love of God.

In the movie, Russell Crowe’s wife gets arrested for a murder. She gets incarcerated because all evidence is against her. Russell is the only one who believes in her innocence. Incriminating evidence seals her doom. He vows to bring her out of prison. The wife, already suffering from a bit of inferiority complex goes into a self-destructive cycle. The more her tries to help, the more she resists and is spiteful. But still Russell perseveres believing in her innocence and tries to free her. She attempts suicide. He does not give up, he is at her bedside. 

This is amazingly similar to the love of God. In the Bible, God relates with man in a Father-Son relationship. But there is another very important, but less talked about, facet which is the Groom-Bride relationship. God is the Husband, human being is His Bride. He loves His Bride with an everlasting love. Even when we are spiteful and angry and allow our feelings of insecurity and inferiority to destroy us, He never gives up on us. Even if we decide to give up on us and attempt suicide, He never gives up on us. No matter how much we resist His plans for our freedom, He’ll not give up on us.

The wife has accepted her doomed life in the prison. She then realizes that only way to get him off his pointless endeavor to free her is to lie to him that she committed the crime. She does that. He does not flinch. He trusts her so much that he reaffirms her worth. He says, “I will not allow this prison to become your home”. 

The prison which the wife thinks has become her home, points to another metaphor in life - people thinking that living in chains is normal. Roussea said, "Man is born free, but every where he is in chains". Prison is bondage. Sin/hopelessness is bondage. Most people live in the prison of sin/faithlessness and think it is their home and that there is no hope for real freedom in life. They make a home of the prison of sin/hopelessness. But God does not want us to settle for a life of faithless  bondage. Jesus Christ says, “I have come to show the Truth. I am the Truth and Truth shall set you free.”

In the movie, to redeem her, Russell stoops down to the point of becoming a criminal himself. Till the end she does not see her worth and tries to jeopardize his carefully laid plans for her freedom. But he keeps on loving her and trusting her to redeem her to himself and start a new life in a new home far off in distant shores.

In real life, God allowed His own Son (Jesus Christ) to be killed in order that through Him, no matter how much we self-destructively jeopardize His plans for our everlasting freedom, we will not succeed. His Truth will set us free, because He will not give upon us. He loves us as a trusting Husband loves His self-doubting wife. No matter how much we resist, He’ll make us find our freedom and journey to the new Home He has prepared for us a on the distant Shores where we’ll live as free people fully redeemed and happy in Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.(Rom 8:28-39).

12/01/2010 - Reindeer Celebrity-hood

Even in our songs, if we need to make the red-nosed Reindeer into a Christmas 'celebrity' for it to feel secure about itself, how will our kids ever know the true basis for self-worth?

I was listening to Christmas music on FM. It was the song about Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer. I have heard this song umpteen times, but this time what caught my attention was that Rudolf is rejected by other Reindeers. When the Santa finds Rudolf useful then the other Reindeers look ‘up’ to him. Having become an instant ‘celebrity’ the Reindeer transitions from rejection into the privilege of being ‘most loved’. At a superficial level as this story is ‘heart-warming’ story about a rejected person being accepted, but what bothers me is that at a deeper level the basis for acceptance is more about the newly found ‘celebrity’ status (and usefulness to another showier celebrity – the Santa) than intrinsic self-worth. If our kids get cue from this that their self-worth is in discovering something about themselves which will make them a celebrity or make them useful to other celebrities, catching some lime-light themselves, then that is really a bad moral. Celebrity-hood often is fickle. ‘Reindeer Celebrities’ who pin their hopes on their usefulness to others will burn out fast and are often predisposed to spiral into a depression. Wonder how much such good songs/movies/self-help books with bad morals have to do with depression which is a huge problem among kids, who ideally should be enjoying their blissful childhood reading about good morals in the likes of Chronicles of Narnia.

11/23/2010

Sometimes, I am too engrossed with reading between the lines that I forget to read the lines themselves... I cherish the minutiae but miss the obvious. :)

I said this in facebook when I was thinking about (the discuss about Strengths of fellow small group attendees) how I was able to draw attention to some very intricate details about what people said and did in my GBC growth group and how that showed evidence for their strengths. I was able to remember things which even they had forgotten as something which they had said. But then I also remember as having been accused of missing some obvious cues. So I thought it was ironical that I read between the lines but missed the obvious.

11/25/2010

I am grateful for 1) My family back home 2) Church friends in Houston 3) Job that I like and my great work colleagues 4) Motorcycle that makes me happy, takes me places 5) Books 6) Movies 7) Houston restaurants! I am grateful to God for giving me all the above, most importantly - a cherished relationship with Him. Thank you also God for the family (my bud Adam's) in Houston I am to spend this Thanks Giving with. :D

This in my note on Thanks Giving! I am so so happy for all that God has done for me in the past year! Thanks Thee with a FULL heart!!!

11/27/2010

There is pleasure in craziness there is pleasure in comfort the motorcycle gives pleasure of one kind and the car another. I thank God who has blessed me to enjoy both. :)

I wrote this just after I came home from getting my car, in fact my first car. For the longest time, I was stubborn that motorcycles were the most pleasurable means of travel. I thought driving cars wouldn't be as much fun. Yes, they aren't but the pleasure a car offers is different. And I am loving it. I thank God for my car!!! :)

11/27/2010

Sometimes I am tumbling all over, tangled in the web of my own thoughts...

I said this when I was thinking about how in the GBC growth group, when I am talking about something, I begin to chase rabbit hole in my mind and soon I kind of lose track of what I was reallying going to say and sometimes stop in the middle of a thought, least I should continue on my rabbit-hole-chasing. I realize that I got tangled in the web of my own thoughts... and am paralyzed.

11/11/10 7:33 PM

When man fails to acknowledge the irrevocableness of the Fall, he'll resorts to giving his zealous allegiance to ideologies that promises to usher in an Utopian world devoid of pain or suffering. Such an Elitist mistakenly thinks that if Uncle Sam is strong enough all problems from poverty to racism can be fixed and then that we'll move into a state of pre-Fall Utopia.

Much of Liberalism as seen in among the urban educated elite is a religion that they owe their allegiance to. Liberalism is their greater than life ideal that will move human kind towards a blemishless Utopia. The real problem with liberalism is that it has borrowed the ideas of virtue and goodness from Christianity but it relegated the Fall and consequently the need for Redemption. As long as liberalism discounts the Fall, it shall not understand human nature and it solutions will be partial. As long as liberalism discounts man's need for God to be redeemed, it will resort to elevate the State to the position of God. Their hope is not a world where human nature is fully redeemed by God, but rather a world that is technologically and socially re-engineered to be a painless, hate-less,  suffering-less Utopia.

11/14/10 8:15 PM

"The essence of life is to know what 'season of life' we are in right now and life it to the Fullest as per God's enabling freedom, whilst being open to move to the next 'season of life' when the timing it right. :D'

I was thinking about some of the good times back in college and wondered if I could ever recreate them. I realized that I couldn’t. That was just a season that was to be enjoyed and I enjoyed it. The season I am living in now is something that needs to be enjoyed in itself knowing well that some day later on I’ll look back and wonder if I could recreate the freedom of this stage of life. God has blessed me with so much in this life. So I need to live my life to the Fullest enjoyment and productivity through the freedom that God gives me. Christ is the Truth who frees me to live life to the fullest. God enables me to be free to enjoy life because He has secured my future. I need to be grateful to Him. Live the current ‘season of life’ to the Fullest and be open to allow God to move me to the next. God will bless me in that as well. 

9. 10/24/10

Motorcycling is kind of like surfing the whole body is involved in riding... that is why a motorcyclist can take on curves or change lanes without touching the handlebars...

8. 10/23/10

The bubble of spirituality colorful and cool as it may initially be, will soon pop if it is not transformed into a tent where on builds a relationship with the Transcended One. :)

7. 10/24/10

I admire the 'hippie heart', it is just that I don't agree with their world view. The 'hippie heart' yearns for 'Beauty', but their world view that discounts God leads them to look at places that cannot fully satisfy their need for transcended Beauty...

 

I think the problem is not with the spirit of the hippie which essentially seeks beauty and freedom in life. I think the hippie world view discounts God and so they do not know what true pleasure and freedom in life is. They mistakenly try to find freedom within the world where men are still in chains. Rousseau said "Man is born free but everywhere else he is in chains". Hippies want to break away from the chains by their own power... unfortunately they cannot and they resort to escape into world of drugs and sex and art and what not...

6. 10/24/10

When you are making an 'apologia' for you faith or your folly, you can't punch him/her in the nose (with your winning arguments) and then give a rose to smell. It does not work that way. Life is not about logic and rationalism, neither is it about stimuli and reactions. We have feelings that need to be valued. :)

5. 10/24/10

 Where there is sacrifice and fellowship, there is true love. Cross is a place where there is sacrifice of God making a way for fellowship with God, that is true love.

3. 10/23/10

A clobbered mind and a confused heart looking UP unto the Hills from whence cometh Counsel and Comfort.

3. 10/23/10

Sensitive ones understand their own feelings. Perceptive one sense how others feel. The ones that are too sensitive but not perceptive enough are the ones most to be pitied.

Reason for Existence of this Blog - Proverbs 25:2

Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

2. 10/23/10

A man's spiritual ignorance of the Supernatural One, God, is often the result of indifference that is engendered by a false sense of self-sufficiency specifically when it comes to morality. Our problem is, we think we are good enough and so don't see the need to be 'made' Righteous by Jesus Christ.

1. 10/23/10

Art is the pursuit of Truth and the expression of Beauty. The transformation from Truth to Beauty is the genius of the artist. Contrived beauty without truth can seldom be art.