The Big Year

Do you like birds?

The Big Year is a movie about three men entering a bird competition: Brad Harris (played by Jack Black), Stu Preissler (Steve Martin and Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson).

In the movie, Bostick held the world record for most birds spotted in a single year: 732. That’s a lot of birds!

Meanwhile, Brad, a single divorced guy who lived with his parents, decided that he was going to set off to beat that record. Also, Stu, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company decided to retire so he can pursue winning The Big Year as well.

Throughout their adventure, Brad and Stu meet and form a tight bond over what they love. Brad helped old Stu feel younger again and Stu helped poor Brad stop going into debt over travel expenses. Stu even helped Brad get closer to his dad and meet a special bird-loving young lady.

As the competition progressed, their desires for birds was overcome by a desire for true happiness in their love lives, families and friendships with one another.

Bostick, however, was a different story.

He was no-holds barred and did whatever it took to maintain his title, becoming so consuming that he pushed away everything, even his beautiful wife Jessica. He shattered his record and walked away with another Big Year title, but did it all alone.

The overall lesson communicated in this movie was that the simple pleasures of happiness and love are far greater than the pride of a title.

As people we can do the same thing. We believe this lie about life, that when we achieve a certain goal, then we will be truly happy. So we put everything on the chopping block: even our own families!

So in Matthew 6, when Jesus said, “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear,” do you think he had a point? When he told that rich man to “sell everything and follow me” (Luke 18:22), do you think he was issuing him another challenge, or do you think He was trying to save that man’s life?

Wounds

"Wounds so deep, they never show, they never go away.

Like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played."

-from "Easier to Run" by Linkin Park

“I’m not sure that anybody who lived through that one hasn’t carried with him, in some hidden ways, the scars. Perhaps that is the factor that helps keep Easy Men bonded so unusually close together.” -Captain Richard Winters, from Easy Company, WWII

"Scars remind us that the past was real." -William Shakespeare

Do any of you remember those old cliche kung fu movies? They always start out in such a way where they show the hero as a baby with his family. Then the villain comes in and murders the child's family, burns down the house and it shows a dramatic scene of the baby crying alone in the dark.

Then for the rest of his life (at least in the movie), he is driven by only one desire: revenge. That festering wound in his heart became his identity. It was the only thing he desired: to see the man who killed his family dead.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about wounds. We are a people who in many ways can let wounds define us. Many charities are started because of a person seeing a wound. Invisible Children, for example was started because this group of guys stumbled across a remnant of African orphans running from child soldiers in Africa. They were dirty, hungry, and wounded in more ways than one. Seeing them so deeply moved them to action.

Our wounds can drive us. Sometimes certain wounds even from our past if they hurt us deep enough propel us forward in how we think of ourselves, others and even God. If we had festering wounds from an abusive father, seeing God as a loving Father is extremely hard for us.

But you know...God talked about wounds.

"But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5 (NIV, emphasis mine)

Wounds we've experienced through hard times can define our entire lives. But then we see Jesus. He bore the wounds of sin, both physical with the cross and even more so spiritual with the wrath of God.

You see, when God looks at us as followers of Christ, He doesn't see the wounds from our past sins and sufferings, He sees the wounds of Jesus.

In Jesus, wounds bring on a whole new meaning. We can exchange our wounds for His....

Our wounds bring bondage, His bring freedom.

Our wounds bring suffering, His bring peace.

Our wounds bring chaos, His bring order.

Our wounds bring infection, His bring healing.

Our wounds bring sin, His make saints.

Our wounds are filthy, His are beautiful.

Our wounds show imperfection, His were perfect.

Let's make that exchange!

Weakness, Part 2

"Crying out reminds us of our dependence. Weeping leads us to reconnect with God. Our tears are sacred. They water the ground around our feet so that new things can grow."

-from Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell

"I hear the Savior say, 'Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.'" -from "Jesus Paid It All"

Times like this when we are weak are some of the best times of our lives. When I say "the best", I definitely don't mean the most enjoyable. Let's face it, times of weakness are tough. They can make us depressed, bitter and want to punch things.

It's interesting how in the Bible, they tell us to "rejoice" when bad things happen.

Rejoice? Like throw a party? That's weird.

Okay, maybe not that far. Times of trial though can be amazing times of spiritual breakthrough. Paul in his letter to the Roman church said this profound statement about suffering: "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (5:3b-5).

Hard times teach us things. Not as punishment, but definitely as discipline.

Maybe a hard time is a result of a particular sin in our lives that we've been consumed with and are avoiding.

When Paul was writing that verse I cited in the previous post, God was teaching him about a flaw of his called boasting. In that verse he described a specific "thorn in the flesh", though he never said what that thorn actually was. It was something that Paul frequently cried out to God for release from.

Do you have a thorn?

Constant back pain,

significant debt,

a physical illness that just won't go away,

a cloud of depression and sorrow over your head,

unemployment,

doubts about God,

insufficient funds,

car troubles,

no friends,

horrible "friends",

constant criticism,

no food,

parents who filed for divorce,

someone close to you passed away,

________________. <--------Fill in the blank

Maybe God is actually trying to teach you something.

Maybe God is actually trying to tell you, "I miss you."

So many times people say it's hard to cry out to God when bad things happen. You know what? I disagree. It's easy to cry out to God. It's easy to tell Him at the very least how mad we are at everything, how confused we are, how broken we are.

When I look back at old journal entries I wrote, some of my most beautiful prayers to God were during some really bad days.

Bad times cause us to be vulnerable. They show us that we are weak, that we can't do this life without the strong hand of God in it.

They humble us.

They show us that weakness is the best place to be.

Weakness is where we should always be.

So, Child of Weakness, as you can't walk.

As life hurts.

As you ache.

As you cry.

Remember you're in a very beautiful place,

The place where you were meant to be:

inside the Everlasting Arms of God.

And He will never, ever let you go.