Have you ever noticed??

Just recently I got caught up in a tv series, it grabbed me and I was held fast until I finished all 3 series. Now people get obsessed with tv programmes and movies and actors, and in society today it is considered "normal". I have a personality that gets caught up in these kind of fictions and obsesses about them, until the thirst is satisfied. Normally it doesn't bother me, just lately it really worried me. Why was I hanging on for the next episode, why did I want to see the behind the scenes stuff? I mean other than normal fascination at a good show (BBC's Robin hood, if you are wondering..) it really consumed me for a couple of weeks. I spent alot of time praying in between episodes, Father why am I not obsessing like this about you? Why do I do this, what is the purpose in it? How can I even do this? So the self flaggelation kicks in (I am an expert in this field) and I got down on myself, but still could not stop watching this show.

It has occurred to me before that most movies, tv shows, echo the desires of our heart, that God put there, the need for a hero, to be saved, rescued and to be loved completely exactly as we are. Movies like Robin Hood, Superman, spiderman, the matrix, and countless others, the hero is willing to sacrifice his life to save mortal man. There are plenty others, these are a few I could think of off the top of my head. Other movies where the hero loves the heroine completely regardless of her faults, and because of his love she is made to be perfect, Bed of roses is like that. Other movies portray the guy as perfect and the woman as perfect and it is all a bit "unreal" but we love these movies and they do well at the box office. Movies that have both a hero saving mortals and a love story entwined also do great.

So I think that human beings crave a hero, and subconciously acknowledge that we are not perfect. It is demonstrated in our movies and books. We represent the need for Christ in our theatres and movies and our idolisation of the "perfect" people shows our desire to be perfect as we once were and will be eventually. We also crave a perfect love that accepts and is not demanding, but fulfilling, and all encompassing. So the world denies God verbally and the possibility that God sent Himself as a man to rescue us is scoffed, then we make movies and write books, and television programmes that express our desire for such a thing to be.

So I watched Robin Hood by the BBC and I really enjoyed it, I watched it with my husband, and cried when people died and felt sad and laughed. When I had seen all 3 series, it had finished and I was satisfied I realised again that it echoed my own hearts need for a hero, someone to save me and to love me completely exactly as I am. My husband loves me as I am, and his patience sometimes goes way beyond the normal human levels (in my opinion), but the need for the Love of God, of the creator who made me, and knows me, goes way beyond the need of the love of my husband. It drives me and satisfies me in a way that no other could, and I long to be perfected and to be with Him in His glory.

While the world vehemently denies and mocks God and His Son, and ultimate sacrifice, hero of the world, take time to look beyond what is immediately verbalised, and hear the echo of their souls as it whispers to us at a deafening level. They want a saviour, they crave a hero, they feel a need that they know they can't fill, but try to. Will we show them? Will I show them? How do we tell a hostile world who is angry and scared, confused and feels alone? The anger and denial (that I also have sometimes) they have is a wall put up to keep the soft vulnerable part of them safe. They act severley to hide their vulnerability, look past the initial barrier and see the vulnerable person and act with consideration and gentleness.

Christians do not preach words at these people, words are cheap and meaningless. Make your message Love, let it be in the things you do, and the way you approach them. Read the Gospels and make your sermon be the way you live your life, the way you interact with these people. Forgive people, make it real, not just words, start with the people close to you who sometimes should know better, forgive them first. Forgive the members of your church, who sometimes should know better, the mission field is at your doorstep, and Christianity starts at home. Acknowledge your own need for forgiveness and keep this at the forefront of your mind to help you keep a humble heart. Don't get all pious about forgiving them, be humble, be quiet and let your behaviour show a changed spirit toward them. For too long Christians have pulled out their bibles and slammed the verses into broken people and the verses have been given with such haste and thoughtlessness that they wound rather than heal. Do not bash people with the Bible, do not twist its words to humiliate and flagellate, to make yourself better than them, to shame them and scare them into salvation. That is not what Jesus did, and not what He wants us to do. Let the Bible live through you, let the love of Christ resonate out of your life, let people see you and wonder why you are the way you are, let them see it and want to have some of it, to be close to it and to be like it.

The world craves our hero, and the world craves His perfecting Love, they need it, they deny it, and their souls whisper a deafening message to us constantly, will we heed it? will we hear it? will we respond??