the Grapevine 7/17/09
Mark Jackson
I've never really been the dangerous type. My life has been more about danger avoidance and/or simulated danger than it has been about actual encounters with risk & peril. (Some of you who've ridden with me when I drive may want to disagree here.)
Jose Chung: Aren't you nervous telling me all this? Receiving all those death threats?
Blaine: Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' (The X-Files)
Make fun if you want (I certainly do), but I did my time as a sword & sorcery adventurer in D&D... and just like most boys, I played "Army" with my friends. (There weren't a lot of us who played together on my culdesac, so my friend Brian & I played a lot of "Commando." And, yes, we got the idea from watching re-runs of the old TV show, "Commando.")
As a somewhat older individual, I really enjoyed playing paintball... there is pain involved (ask Shari, who is VERY clear that she will not be caught dead holding a paintball gun again) and lots of throwing yourself to the ground in order to avoid being shot - but no matter how many times you're hit, you still walk away at the end of the day. It scratches the same itch as playing "Army".
I think every little boy (and every big boy, for that matter) wants to do big & dangerous things: fight fires, rescue damsels in distress, stop super-villains, do data-entry for 8 hours a day... ok, maybe not the last one.
Sky-Byte: Stop this nonsense! If you had any brains you'd be dangerous.
Transformers: Robots In Disguise
And when we read the stories of the Bible, we see people facing real dangers: evil kings, poisonous snakes, pagan armies... and we see the heroes of those stories being, well, heroic: fighting giants with slingshots, one prophet of God vs. 400 prophets of Baal, busting out of jail in the midst of an earthquake... you get the idea.
Bolt: I gotta warn ya, going into the belly of the beast - danger at every turn.
Rhino: [getting closer] I eat danger for breakfast!
Bolt: You hungry?
Rhino: [cracks neck] Starving!
Bolt
So what happens when we trade in danger for duty... and that duty is expressed primarily by showing up, sitting still & doing the same thing week after week after week? What happens when we take all the danger out of following God?
What we end up with is men (and women!) who are bored & exhausted... and unfulfilled. We were not made for becoming part of the clone army of people who hide out in their churches... we were created to storm the gates of Hell, to make a god-sized dent in the lives of people around us.
Worse yet, we end up with people who go looking for danger in stupid places: extreme sports, fast cars, extramarital affairs... the list is endless. We allow the Enemy to nudge us into spending our passion on things without eternal weight... or with things that not only crush us but those we love the most.
On the teaching CD, "Raising Boys" (from Ransomed Heart Ministries), one of the guys talks about giving his son an engraved sword as a way of marking his passage into manhood. The words emblazoned on the blade were "Dangerous for Good" - a recognition from the dad that he had spent way too many years of his own life being "dangerous for nothing" and his dream for his son was something very different.
God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, he will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: 'Use me.'
Rick Warren
It's time for us to ask God for more than just being dutiful people - we want to be, in the words of the Ransomed Heart folks, "dangerous for good." Our safety & comfort have to take a back seat to taking risks in order to see God move... because as long as we can do it ourselves, as long as we explain everything that goes on in terms of what we figured out or how smart/wise we were, we won't face the danger of falling flat on our face when God doesn't do what we want Him to.
And we'll never have the joy of seeing God move in ways we couldn't predict unless we get dangerous. Honestly, I'm scared - but more than a little excited. Whadda you say we go for it together?!
i see a world in need out on the wire
i'll take a leap of faith into the fire
i'm going over the edge now
yeah i'm ready to reach out
i wanna be Dangerous
unashamed to proclaim your name
i wanna be Dangerous
i can't hide or deny what's inside
i wanna be Dangerous
so many times i fail to even try
i compromise my faith by standing by
i'm going over the edge now
yeah i'm ready to reach out
my mind is made up and i'm ready
i'm goin over the edge
I'm steppin out on the wire
come on
I wanna be Dangerous
unashamed to proclaim your name
I wanna be Dangerous
i can't hide or deny what's inside
I wanna be Dangerous
"Dangerous" by DecembeRadio (from their debut album)
The Answer Man
There really aren't reviews available yet for the film, "The Answer Man" because it doesn't release to theaters until July 24th... but I was able to watch it last night on Amazon VOD (Video On Demand), thanks to their need for publicity about the film.
What follows is not my full review (I'll blog about it next week) but some initial reactions:
- The film is rated "R" for language... and JUST language. No sex, no violence (unless you consider chiropractic care a form of assault) and no real "adult talk". At the same time, it's rated "R" for language for a reason. (I'm just saying...)
- The spirituality in the story about a man who wrote a book about his conversations with God is pretty New Age/generic... and, by the end of the film, all kind of besides the point.
- This is not a faith-affirming film... yet neither is it a faith-destroying film.
- It isn't a romcom (romantic comedy, either) - although it has romcom elements (Meet Cute, kiss, focus on potential romantic relationship), this is actually a film about healing from wounds of the past and moving toward something better.
- The acting is very good, even when the script seems a bit truncated. (Watching the film, it seemed clear that several plot lines got left on the cutting room floor to keep the pacing tight.)
I'm not recommending the film - Shari, frankly, didn't like it - but I think it's a film that could generate interesting conversations about faith & life & prayer, so I hate to tell people not to see it.