Category: Jimmy Stewart

Scoring For the Other Team

This past weekend, the Senior Pastor at my church delivered a message called “Know Your Enemy.” Our enemy is Satan, a fallen angel. This enemy can have us turn on each other. He can have us do things that take us further from our walk with Christ.

Our pastor gave a good analogy of how sometimes we think we are doing good and doing the right thing, but maybe we’re not. Like a hockey player who has the puck but he is going the wrong way down the ice towards the opponent’s goal, and ends up scoring for the other team.

How often have I scored for the other team by my actions or attitude? Am I doing what I want or want Christ wants?

I’m also studying Romans 8 right now, via Dineen Miller’s “You Are Loved” book. In Roman’s 8:1, it states: “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (NLT)

Dineen also states that the enemy’s mission is to condemn us and destroy our faith. If we have no condemnation as Christ followers, then how can the enemy do this to us? Easy – he is a deceiver. And if we’re not paying attention, then we’re scoring for the other team.

We need to remember how Jesus treated others. Are we so busy judging everyone else that we forget to take a look at ourselves? Are we so self-focused that we don’t care what anyone else is doing? Do we say, “I have to get there faster, I have to take care of my own stuff, I’ll ignore that because it has nothing to do with me.”

If we are no longer condemned as Christ followers, then what gives us any right to condemn others? If we are forgiven and set free, why can’t we forgive others? If someone lives a lifestyle different than mine, am I treating them with kindness or am I condemning them? Judging them? Spitting in their face because they’re different than me?

Or are we so busy trying to shine our light for Jesus that we end up with a strobe light in someone’s face instead? How can they see the light of Christ when we’re blinding them? Blinding with our attitudes and judgment.

It’s a dark world, but we know who has the ultimate victory. So, this week, as I think through all of this, I have to ask myself, “Is my light shining brighter in kindness, or in condemnation?”

In other words, I don’t want to keep scoring for the other side.

 

 

Let’s Go to the Movies…Or Not

This week’s post is purely my own opinion about the state of Hollywood movies these days, so some of you may disagree with my thoughts. That’s fine. I welcome varying opinions and ideas.

My husband and I enjoy watching movies and go to see them frequently.  Anything we miss on the big screen, we will usually see on pay-per-view.  If you’ve been to our house, you’ll see a half-way decent DVD collection as well.

Unfortunately, this past weekend we went to see a movie… and ended up walking out of it.  It reached a point where the violence and carnage were just too much.  We didn’t need to see all of that graphic detail. What was the point?  Just for shock value? 

Plus, we didn’t care about the characters. There wasn’t anything truly redeeming or heroic about the main character that made me care if he reached his goal.

It seems like we are at the point in movies where the filmmakers don’t trust their audience to use their imagination or be able to discern what’s really going on with the story, unless it’s shoved down our throat.  Every violent, awful detail is now shown, up close and in your face.  

And there are some movies where you cannot distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys. Everyone is out for themselves or for revenge, and there’s nothing redeeming about any of the characters.

This sparked a discussion between my husband and myself about “growing older” and our “changing tastes” in movies.  Well, in this area, I’m glad to grow older.  I’m sorry we wasted our money on the movie this weekend, only to walk out of it.

Now my husband understands why I tend to watch certain movies over and over again. Most of the new stuff stinks.

Of course, I blame my film crit professor from the University of Texas (Hook ‘Em Horns) for my analysis of movies and watching them again and again.

It was because of his class that I became a fan of Alfred Hitchcock movies (pre-“Psycho”).  Hitchcock was a master of suspense by allowing the audience to use their imagination.  Sometimes your own imagination is scarier than what you are bombarded with in some of today’s films.

Take “Rear Window.” When Raymond Burr’s character is climbing up the stairs to Jimmy Stewart’s apartment. The audience hears the outside door slam,  the sound of the footsteps as he climbs, the pause outside the door, Jimmy Stewart’s face and his feeling of being trapped with no where to go are all evident, just from the sound of heavy, slow footsteps, and a bead of sweat coming down Stewart’s temple. The audience is scared right along with Jimmy!  Yes, there’s a “fight” scene, but it’s tame compared to today’s fight scenes.

It’s still a wonderfully, suspenseful scene with zero blood and gore.

I hope there’s more of a demand for cleaner movies — still fun, still suspenseful, still romantic — without gratuitous violence, nudity or crudeness.  Truly, it can be done.  The group who made “Facing the Giants,” and “Courageous” among others is trying to do this.  They don’t have the top-notch actors (I don’t mean to offend there), and Hollywood money backing them up yet, but at least the stories they’re telling are appealing and life affirming.

At some point, we have to quit paying to see the overly violent, made with the jerky camera (why this is suddenly so popular, I’ll never know) film, and let’s get back to stories about characters we care about.

Will Hollywood listen? Well, I’m not the audience demographic that they make movies for. I can only hope my children and the younger generation are really thinking about what they’re filling their minds with and where they’re spending their money. I guess that would be my prayer…. that we all pay closer attention to what we fill our minds with.

Oh, Jimmy Stewart, we sure could use you now!