I have begun my 43rd year of life - quietly, with fellow Christians at a conference full of good Bible teaching and praises to God. And with special friends at their home.
It was just before the tragic killings in France and the slaughters by terrorists in the villages and markets of Nigeria.
Then I went to see the movie "Into the Woods".
This mixture of characters from fairytales is a dark take on the reality of life - it is often not what we wish for, nor does it always end well. We all have a place (or places) - the Woods - where we either rise to the challenge before us, or sink to our depths.
In fact, character - the internal virtues that are embraced and evidenced in time of trouble - is an underlying theme, as much as the spoofs on prince-liness and over-bearing mothers.
It was not as dark as I had feared, but darker still:
If all I need lies within me, and I choose my own path to be the master of my own fate, then we are all in trouble.
Honestly, do we need to keep believing the lie that WE are okay? That WE can make it out of the Woods, even by cooperating and "sticking together'?
We - frail and sinful humanity, "born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards" (Book of Job), cannot lift ourselves up by our own bootlaces!!!!!
And so the link between the violence and the movie is this: we are fallen, we are in trouble, WE - humanity - are in the Woods of sin and darkness, and we CANNOT get out by ourselves.
To humbly turn to God and accept his saviour Jesus Christ is not only an act of courage and character, but one that can only happen due to his amazing grace - not our effort.
This is what the disappointed and weeping world fails to realise, and so wanders on in The Woods.
It was just before the tragic killings in France and the slaughters by terrorists in the villages and markets of Nigeria.
Then I went to see the movie "Into the Woods".
This mixture of characters from fairytales is a dark take on the reality of life - it is often not what we wish for, nor does it always end well. We all have a place (or places) - the Woods - where we either rise to the challenge before us, or sink to our depths.
In fact, character - the internal virtues that are embraced and evidenced in time of trouble - is an underlying theme, as much as the spoofs on prince-liness and over-bearing mothers.
It was not as dark as I had feared, but darker still:
If all I need lies within me, and I choose my own path to be the master of my own fate, then we are all in trouble.
Honestly, do we need to keep believing the lie that WE are okay? That WE can make it out of the Woods, even by cooperating and "sticking together'?
We - frail and sinful humanity, "born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards" (Book of Job), cannot lift ourselves up by our own bootlaces!!!!!
And so the link between the violence and the movie is this: we are fallen, we are in trouble, WE - humanity - are in the Woods of sin and darkness, and we CANNOT get out by ourselves.
To humbly turn to God and accept his saviour Jesus Christ is not only an act of courage and character, but one that can only happen due to his amazing grace - not our effort.
This is what the disappointed and weeping world fails to realise, and so wanders on in The Woods.
