GOD IS GOD
Obviously, I'm just writing for the sake of writing. Simply because I haven't been writing in three weeks. Sure enough, I had more thoughts and events than just this, but I don't have the time to organize it yet.
Busy with being obsessed with a short film I'm going to make. Unhealthy obsession. Sorry. Trying to get back on track.
Again, I've noticed a malicious thought within the depths of my heart. It's not new, but it's still there, and this seems to be a fresh vision. I hope I'm not phrasing it the same way.
The sin is complaint. Murmuring. What's different this time is that I discovered it could even exist among my cries out to God for my personal holiness. I ask for good things. I ask for sanctification and deliverance from sin. Yet a lot of times it just doesn't feel right. Perhaps it just doesn't taste like those moments when I am assured that my prayers have went up to Him and all is perfect.
And I become curious as to why I can offer up such "selfless" prayers and still feel in want. Problem was it still wasn't selfless. All of the time, with no exception I can remember, that I would not feel comfortable in my prayers, it was because I'm concerned about some perfect version of me that I want God to grant. I wasn't asking for God's kingdom come, because then I would not feel uncertain about my prayers. I'd know that it will happen.
I will refer to two other notable writers.
First, C. S. Lewis. In The Screwtape Letters, there was apparently a method the demons used to deceive people, called "Christianity and-". Christianity and wealth. Christianity and social influence. Christianity and secular psychology. Christianity and fun. Christianity and me. The trick was to keep the believer from understanding the fullness of salvation in Christ, and getting him to add something else to the belief. It is very effective, because it seems so harmless. But the reality is that one then fails to understand how complete and assured our salvation is, and we are unable to say along with King David, "I shall not want." Truly, if you really, really, really think about it, our salvation and hope of God's coming kingdom should fill us with joy and purge us of our cheap worries and wants (Psalm 51:12).
Second, John Calvin. I can't quote him accurately, but he said something like this, that prayer is God's way of conforming our wills to His. How important it is for us to remember that. Prayer is to teach us to let go of the less important for the greater blessing.
And by God's grace, the greatest blessing is offered freely. Yet we run around so much for other stuff. How wonderful it is to forget all the cares of the world for a moment and realize that, in a way, everything's already perfect, locked in position for the immense glorification of the Lord, including my imperfect self.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Monday, October 7, 2013
October Begins; Giver of Rewards; Eating; Formula; Work; His Story
HOW'S IT GOING, JOSH?
It's been a long time since I last posted. So I'll try to squeeze in everything that my mind came across during this time.
How's it going?
I must admit, that's one of the deepest questions one can ask, once you really think about it. Who can evaluate his own condition while caught up in the chaos? It's already hard enough to evaluate other people. The human heart is truly one of the greatest mysteries there is.
I'm almost completing my 11th grade in my homeschooling course. Most likely I wouldn't be doing the 12th grade, so I'm nearing the end of my high school years. It's going to be the first graduation of my life, as I never graduated from either kindergarten or primary school.
A few days ago, I drove a manual car for the first time. It was fun, like playing with a toy. A really expensive toy. I'll most likely get a Probationary license by the end of the year, and start driving around for real.
The youth fellowship is seeing a dramatic decrease in number, as all the big tests in secondary schools are coming up. That, and also because some have left us completely. I've heard that some went to another youth fellowship in another church. It feels bad, to some extent, but not as bad as I wished and expected it to be. I just really don't prioritize the numbers, and when those of us who are still here sit around, I feel hopeful. The remnant, they are. I have high hopes for remnants because I know that God loves to use small numbers to achieve great things. We are now concentrated gunpowder, and waiting to explode at the Spirit's igniting, you just wait, you. Clouds have to rain sometime, or else they aren't clouds.
Besides, it's not like I can do things that I can't. I'm just not ready to try and keep some people, or involve my porcupine personality too deeply in the life of someone else. I'm a person. I'm human. There are some things I don't know how to do yet; don't try to make me skip the basic steps to get me to the advanced level, it ain't gonna work. Challenge me, yes, but challenge me as Biblically as possible. Or else it's just the same mistake I've made in the past of pressing people for "repentance" based upon confidence in the messenger, not the message. The messenger can get loud, but only the message goes deep. Away with youth fellowship leader and whatnot for now, I'm first and foremost a slave of God and His seeker.
Oh God, please help me blossom. Please help me do it. Clouds have to rain sometime, or else they aren't clouds.
A lot of people are going through spiritual lows. I'm no exception. My fixed "dates" have become unfixed. Prayer life is not constant. What in the world, Joshua, trying to live without breathing. But it's always when you hit rock bottom that you look up. I like that. I like hitting bottom and looking up, because it reminds me of all the times in the past it happened, and the glory of God in bringing me through the darkness.
I think my ambition to make films has become confirmed, both internally and externally. It's going to be real scary, and exhilarating. Being an artist is one of the most enjoyable careers there is; you earn a living by observing the world around you (and in you) and express the beauty or ugliness of it. I think I won't be studying film though. I've been getting advice against it, on the basis of the relative unimportance of film studies to actual film-making. I think a good alternative is history. But more on that later.
While having an online conversation with a sister, she said something I really like. I don't know if she said it intentionally or not. We were talking about spiritual problems faced, and how to face them. I said, "God help us." She said, "Yes. God helps us." Helps. Present continuous tense.
God helps us.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”
(1 Samuel 7:12)
* * * * *
GOD THE REWARDER
This is a really important concept I've come to understand in greater measure recently.
In opposition against a works-based salvation, we can easily feel repulsed by the notion that God rewards people for obeying Him. We might not hold on to this as firmly as we stand for other doctrines. We think that we should do things because we should.
But the error of trying not to think about the rewards is that we try to produce our own motivation. And it never works. How futile it is to try to separate God from His works and blessings. When we try to do that, we throw God out the window to some degree as well. Those are His blessings, His promises.
You then get caught up in some weird paradox where you're trying to want God while pushing away His encouragements that you will have joy and peace and love if you obey Him. It doesn't even make sense.
At the root of that is pride. You're thinking, "It's okay, God, I can do it. I can pursue You without more of Your help. You've helped me enough already." For me, this is a real issue, because I find that I have a deep attitude of I just win, baby. In fact, one of the great effects of such an attitude is that I become so afraid of failure. I just mustn't lose. I can't. I've been given enough, I've had my fair share of God's help by now, now I just need to succeed! And I don't look to God and His rewards anymore.
And when I fall, it devastates me. It cripples me. That's foolishness and vanity.
Sure, there's the great, looming danger of idolatry, of wanting pleasure but rejecting God, of wanting knowledge but rejecting God. Yes, there's the problem of idolatry, where you separate God from His blessings and just want the blessings. But the other extreme is idolatry as well; you've made for yourself a God who does not reward His people, even though the Bible says he does.
But surely that doesn't make sense. Why would God want to reward us, if our strength is ultimately from Him? Yes, He has absolutely no obligation to do so. That's why the greatness of His love is a mystery. Do you believe He's shown you love even though you came from nothing and gave Him nothing? What's so hard about believing in rewards, then?
It is great encouragement, really, to have something to grasp hold of, in the form of God's promises of blessings and curses. Obedience, reward; sin, punishment. Simple as that. Works-based salvation? Not really. Both the promises and the Spirit that empowers us to obey are from Him.
In His hand are goodness and blessings forevermore. We seek the prize, not because they have intrinsic worth, but because what we taste in the blessing is the essence of God's goodness and beauty.
* * * * *
WHAT MY EATING HABITS HAVE TO DO WITH MY SPIRITUAL LIFE
How odd it is for me to write about food. But really, it's an interesting topic.
I'll write what I know about this theologically, then I'll write about some personal things with regard to this.
Apparently, God didn't design us to be eaters of food for no reason (duh). I mean, even in paradise, we were meant to eat. He could've just designed us as beings that can live without food. It's not as if He's not smart enough.
No, very simply, and very strangely for me, food is meant to be enjoyed. Yes, enjoyed, take it in and contemplate how many great meals you've had without thanking God, who specifically intended that you be able to take pleasure in those meals.
And some people in the world starve. God isn't unfair to them, He's unfair to you, or rather gracious.
What does this mean for us? A deliberate temptation to idolatry? Gluttony? Of course not. It is a means by which we understand ideas like pleasure, goodness, fulfillment, nourishment, ideas that ultimately find their source in God. How interesting it is the first sin involved taking and eating the forbidden fruit, referring to the seeking of pleasure apart from God. Even greater is that we are told to eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood; that figurative language is an absolutely appropriate representation of belief in Christ. He offers Himself to us, and we take Him in.
Unfortunate it is that I seem to have a lower capacity of being appealed by food. I've been told too many times that I seem to eat food with disgust.
This could very well point to my legalism, really. Not that I'm absolutely sure that my eating habits are a symbol of this, but I think the two of these distinct actions share the same root attitude. I can stuff great amounts of food into my mouth, but I swallow really slow. I put it in, but I don't take it in. There's almost a feeling in my throat that's repulsing it.
I have relatively good intellectual ability. I can take on tough concepts and ideas and doctrines and organize them into systems. But a big ego and shriveled humility keeps me from taking the fullness of it into my life, permeating me throughout.
I must change. Not necessarily my eating habits, though. I might actually have some saliva and/or esophagus problems. But sure I can eat better, sure.
* * * * *
FORMULA OF SALVATION
I've always been inclined to say that there's no formula to salvation, no set method to ensure your perseverance.
But really, I think it's better to say that there is a formula, a Biblical formula. We must just be careful not to go beyond that.
What's the Biblical formula? Well, God must regenerate you, justify you, sanctify you. You can't control that. But parallel to that equation is what occurs on our end of perception. We must obey God to prove our salvation, and strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect, but never say nor expect in this life to say that we are without sin, or we would be liars.
How do we obey? By faith, we hold on to His promises that if we seek Him we will find Him, that if we follow Christ we will inherit eternal life, that we follow Christ by obeying His commands, which is all of the Bible.
That's the formula.
Why is this important? Because I've found in myself a tendency to be anti-formulaic for the sake of being anti-formulaic. I would choose not to do some things that are right because I don't trust the formula. In despair, I would choose not to read God's Word because I feel like I'm not going to persevere in it anyway. But I forget that the formula is that if Jesus tells you to walk, you walk. Simple. And thus I prove myself to lack in faith, which is why I fail. I fail from the start.
It's also difficult, though, because there are unknowns in the formula. For example, the work of the Spirit is like the wind; you see its effects afterward but you don't anticipate it or how exactly it'll happen. And then there's the great complexity of the human heart, whereby you don't even know if you're sincere or not.
But try it. And keep trying. Keep trying or die. Simple.
* * * * *
PRIDE VERSUS LAZINESS?
There's apparently a dilemma that I sometimes face. I've become so opposed and fearful to becoming proud that I sometimes refuse to do things that I know are good, simply for the sake of keeping me from feeling too good about myself.
It's stupid to think this way, and I don't think it intentionally either, but I realize that unconsciously I have this folly within me. It's as if I must choose between being proud or being lazy.
If I work hard and do things right, then I bloat up and feel good about myself. The alternative is to not do anything, and end up in slothfulness.
Of course, once you really think about it, you find that either way you're being self-centered. The root problem, as usual, is you're not looking to God, but looking to yourself. If the highest motivation is to please God, then there's no room for pride nor laziness. In the end, then, both pride and laziness are the same thing: a self-centered way of life.
We're not merely meant to be anti-pride or anti-sloth. We're meant to be pro-God. And I think that makes all the difference. With our sights on God's glory and His work, we'd do things right. Yes, on the way we'd encounter our sin, but lift our eyes again to He who is salvation and we shall be delivered.
Work hard at everything He gives to you.
* * * * *
HISTORY AND FILM
Now, a little something about myself.
This has to be one of the oddest strategies for a person's future career ever.
Firstly, at this point, I've decided to make films for the rest of my life as my primary career. How it will shape my life, I'm not quite sure. The industry has a lot to do with whether or not you make your big break. Some of your work will be relatively ignored, while if you do it right, it strikes a chord with the audience and your position alters for the better. If not, you muddle around in the lower positions, which I hope they pay well. Not exactly the most stable job one can find.
Not to mention that I'm not aiming to go into mainstream film anyway. Too secular. My ultimate goal is to create a body of art for the Christian, expressing Christian sentiments and ideas through my films. I believe the Christian artist should have his own genre, for the divine one is most holy and most unique. My search will be for the true Christian genre, to portray the glories of the Christian worldview and the kingdom of heaven and the lives of the saints, instead of having to awkwardly mesh Christian ideas into secular sentiments. No, the glory of God depends on nothing.
Also, like I've said, I'm most likely not going to take film studies. Many of the great Hollywood directors didn't even go to film school. I'll have to learn about cameras and production and movie sets independently, but I don't suppose those will be too tough to learn. I think it's more important to build up a rich stock of information from which to draw artistic inspiration. It's more practical for the aspiring writer/director, in my opinion.
Alas, my alternative route is strange as well, as I have momentarily chosen to study history. Yes, study history in preparation for making films. How does that help?
Well, thank God I have a theological basis for that. Film is predominantly about storytelling. God has written the greatest story of all time: history.
We believe that God is sovereign, that in His work of providence He controls all things according to His will. Thus, every single detail that had happened in the history of the universe is part of His plan. There's the overarching story of the salvation of mankind in Christ Jesus, and then there are countless ministories, and ministories within ministories, and so on. And every character archetype, every single fictional storyline that has ever been created, is but based upon the true stories that God had written before the foundation of the world.
So yes, I'm going directly to the fountain of all inspiration for every story ever written. I'm going to study God's script in preparation for making films.
Of course, when I study history, the lectures probably won't be just story after story. There's probably going to be a lot of training for becoming a historian, teaching you how to get accurate historical data and etcetera. But those would be great skills too. Then I can do historical researches independently, and increase my own exposure to God's story.
Then I'd probably be so filled with a grand vision of God's work from since the beginning of time that I'd have a lot to share with the church. I can share through my words, or even through film.
It's a crazy plan. It sounds exciting. Will it work? God helps me.
It's been a long time since I last posted. So I'll try to squeeze in everything that my mind came across during this time.
How's it going?
I must admit, that's one of the deepest questions one can ask, once you really think about it. Who can evaluate his own condition while caught up in the chaos? It's already hard enough to evaluate other people. The human heart is truly one of the greatest mysteries there is.
I'm almost completing my 11th grade in my homeschooling course. Most likely I wouldn't be doing the 12th grade, so I'm nearing the end of my high school years. It's going to be the first graduation of my life, as I never graduated from either kindergarten or primary school.
A few days ago, I drove a manual car for the first time. It was fun, like playing with a toy. A really expensive toy. I'll most likely get a Probationary license by the end of the year, and start driving around for real.
The youth fellowship is seeing a dramatic decrease in number, as all the big tests in secondary schools are coming up. That, and also because some have left us completely. I've heard that some went to another youth fellowship in another church. It feels bad, to some extent, but not as bad as I wished and expected it to be. I just really don't prioritize the numbers, and when those of us who are still here sit around, I feel hopeful. The remnant, they are. I have high hopes for remnants because I know that God loves to use small numbers to achieve great things. We are now concentrated gunpowder, and waiting to explode at the Spirit's igniting, you just wait, you. Clouds have to rain sometime, or else they aren't clouds.
Besides, it's not like I can do things that I can't. I'm just not ready to try and keep some people, or involve my porcupine personality too deeply in the life of someone else. I'm a person. I'm human. There are some things I don't know how to do yet; don't try to make me skip the basic steps to get me to the advanced level, it ain't gonna work. Challenge me, yes, but challenge me as Biblically as possible. Or else it's just the same mistake I've made in the past of pressing people for "repentance" based upon confidence in the messenger, not the message. The messenger can get loud, but only the message goes deep. Away with youth fellowship leader and whatnot for now, I'm first and foremost a slave of God and His seeker.
Oh God, please help me blossom. Please help me do it. Clouds have to rain sometime, or else they aren't clouds.
A lot of people are going through spiritual lows. I'm no exception. My fixed "dates" have become unfixed. Prayer life is not constant. What in the world, Joshua, trying to live without breathing. But it's always when you hit rock bottom that you look up. I like that. I like hitting bottom and looking up, because it reminds me of all the times in the past it happened, and the glory of God in bringing me through the darkness.
I think my ambition to make films has become confirmed, both internally and externally. It's going to be real scary, and exhilarating. Being an artist is one of the most enjoyable careers there is; you earn a living by observing the world around you (and in you) and express the beauty or ugliness of it. I think I won't be studying film though. I've been getting advice against it, on the basis of the relative unimportance of film studies to actual film-making. I think a good alternative is history. But more on that later.
While having an online conversation with a sister, she said something I really like. I don't know if she said it intentionally or not. We were talking about spiritual problems faced, and how to face them. I said, "God help us." She said, "Yes. God helps us." Helps. Present continuous tense.
God helps us.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”
(1 Samuel 7:12)
* * * * *
GOD THE REWARDER
This is a really important concept I've come to understand in greater measure recently.
In opposition against a works-based salvation, we can easily feel repulsed by the notion that God rewards people for obeying Him. We might not hold on to this as firmly as we stand for other doctrines. We think that we should do things because we should.
But the error of trying not to think about the rewards is that we try to produce our own motivation. And it never works. How futile it is to try to separate God from His works and blessings. When we try to do that, we throw God out the window to some degree as well. Those are His blessings, His promises.
You then get caught up in some weird paradox where you're trying to want God while pushing away His encouragements that you will have joy and peace and love if you obey Him. It doesn't even make sense.
At the root of that is pride. You're thinking, "It's okay, God, I can do it. I can pursue You without more of Your help. You've helped me enough already." For me, this is a real issue, because I find that I have a deep attitude of I just win, baby. In fact, one of the great effects of such an attitude is that I become so afraid of failure. I just mustn't lose. I can't. I've been given enough, I've had my fair share of God's help by now, now I just need to succeed! And I don't look to God and His rewards anymore.
And when I fall, it devastates me. It cripples me. That's foolishness and vanity.
Sure, there's the great, looming danger of idolatry, of wanting pleasure but rejecting God, of wanting knowledge but rejecting God. Yes, there's the problem of idolatry, where you separate God from His blessings and just want the blessings. But the other extreme is idolatry as well; you've made for yourself a God who does not reward His people, even though the Bible says he does.
But surely that doesn't make sense. Why would God want to reward us, if our strength is ultimately from Him? Yes, He has absolutely no obligation to do so. That's why the greatness of His love is a mystery. Do you believe He's shown you love even though you came from nothing and gave Him nothing? What's so hard about believing in rewards, then?
It is great encouragement, really, to have something to grasp hold of, in the form of God's promises of blessings and curses. Obedience, reward; sin, punishment. Simple as that. Works-based salvation? Not really. Both the promises and the Spirit that empowers us to obey are from Him.
In His hand are goodness and blessings forevermore. We seek the prize, not because they have intrinsic worth, but because what we taste in the blessing is the essence of God's goodness and beauty.
* * * * *
WHAT MY EATING HABITS HAVE TO DO WITH MY SPIRITUAL LIFE
How odd it is for me to write about food. But really, it's an interesting topic.
I'll write what I know about this theologically, then I'll write about some personal things with regard to this.
Apparently, God didn't design us to be eaters of food for no reason (duh). I mean, even in paradise, we were meant to eat. He could've just designed us as beings that can live without food. It's not as if He's not smart enough.
No, very simply, and very strangely for me, food is meant to be enjoyed. Yes, enjoyed, take it in and contemplate how many great meals you've had without thanking God, who specifically intended that you be able to take pleasure in those meals.
And some people in the world starve. God isn't unfair to them, He's unfair to you, or rather gracious.
What does this mean for us? A deliberate temptation to idolatry? Gluttony? Of course not. It is a means by which we understand ideas like pleasure, goodness, fulfillment, nourishment, ideas that ultimately find their source in God. How interesting it is the first sin involved taking and eating the forbidden fruit, referring to the seeking of pleasure apart from God. Even greater is that we are told to eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood; that figurative language is an absolutely appropriate representation of belief in Christ. He offers Himself to us, and we take Him in.
Unfortunate it is that I seem to have a lower capacity of being appealed by food. I've been told too many times that I seem to eat food with disgust.
This could very well point to my legalism, really. Not that I'm absolutely sure that my eating habits are a symbol of this, but I think the two of these distinct actions share the same root attitude. I can stuff great amounts of food into my mouth, but I swallow really slow. I put it in, but I don't take it in. There's almost a feeling in my throat that's repulsing it.
I have relatively good intellectual ability. I can take on tough concepts and ideas and doctrines and organize them into systems. But a big ego and shriveled humility keeps me from taking the fullness of it into my life, permeating me throughout.
I must change. Not necessarily my eating habits, though. I might actually have some saliva and/or esophagus problems. But sure I can eat better, sure.
* * * * *
FORMULA OF SALVATION
I've always been inclined to say that there's no formula to salvation, no set method to ensure your perseverance.
But really, I think it's better to say that there is a formula, a Biblical formula. We must just be careful not to go beyond that.
What's the Biblical formula? Well, God must regenerate you, justify you, sanctify you. You can't control that. But parallel to that equation is what occurs on our end of perception. We must obey God to prove our salvation, and strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect, but never say nor expect in this life to say that we are without sin, or we would be liars.
How do we obey? By faith, we hold on to His promises that if we seek Him we will find Him, that if we follow Christ we will inherit eternal life, that we follow Christ by obeying His commands, which is all of the Bible.
That's the formula.
Why is this important? Because I've found in myself a tendency to be anti-formulaic for the sake of being anti-formulaic. I would choose not to do some things that are right because I don't trust the formula. In despair, I would choose not to read God's Word because I feel like I'm not going to persevere in it anyway. But I forget that the formula is that if Jesus tells you to walk, you walk. Simple. And thus I prove myself to lack in faith, which is why I fail. I fail from the start.
It's also difficult, though, because there are unknowns in the formula. For example, the work of the Spirit is like the wind; you see its effects afterward but you don't anticipate it or how exactly it'll happen. And then there's the great complexity of the human heart, whereby you don't even know if you're sincere or not.
But try it. And keep trying. Keep trying or die. Simple.
* * * * *
PRIDE VERSUS LAZINESS?
There's apparently a dilemma that I sometimes face. I've become so opposed and fearful to becoming proud that I sometimes refuse to do things that I know are good, simply for the sake of keeping me from feeling too good about myself.
It's stupid to think this way, and I don't think it intentionally either, but I realize that unconsciously I have this folly within me. It's as if I must choose between being proud or being lazy.
If I work hard and do things right, then I bloat up and feel good about myself. The alternative is to not do anything, and end up in slothfulness.
Of course, once you really think about it, you find that either way you're being self-centered. The root problem, as usual, is you're not looking to God, but looking to yourself. If the highest motivation is to please God, then there's no room for pride nor laziness. In the end, then, both pride and laziness are the same thing: a self-centered way of life.
We're not merely meant to be anti-pride or anti-sloth. We're meant to be pro-God. And I think that makes all the difference. With our sights on God's glory and His work, we'd do things right. Yes, on the way we'd encounter our sin, but lift our eyes again to He who is salvation and we shall be delivered.
Work hard at everything He gives to you.
* * * * *
HISTORY AND FILM
Now, a little something about myself.
This has to be one of the oddest strategies for a person's future career ever.
Firstly, at this point, I've decided to make films for the rest of my life as my primary career. How it will shape my life, I'm not quite sure. The industry has a lot to do with whether or not you make your big break. Some of your work will be relatively ignored, while if you do it right, it strikes a chord with the audience and your position alters for the better. If not, you muddle around in the lower positions, which I hope they pay well. Not exactly the most stable job one can find.
Not to mention that I'm not aiming to go into mainstream film anyway. Too secular. My ultimate goal is to create a body of art for the Christian, expressing Christian sentiments and ideas through my films. I believe the Christian artist should have his own genre, for the divine one is most holy and most unique. My search will be for the true Christian genre, to portray the glories of the Christian worldview and the kingdom of heaven and the lives of the saints, instead of having to awkwardly mesh Christian ideas into secular sentiments. No, the glory of God depends on nothing.
Also, like I've said, I'm most likely not going to take film studies. Many of the great Hollywood directors didn't even go to film school. I'll have to learn about cameras and production and movie sets independently, but I don't suppose those will be too tough to learn. I think it's more important to build up a rich stock of information from which to draw artistic inspiration. It's more practical for the aspiring writer/director, in my opinion.
Alas, my alternative route is strange as well, as I have momentarily chosen to study history. Yes, study history in preparation for making films. How does that help?
Well, thank God I have a theological basis for that. Film is predominantly about storytelling. God has written the greatest story of all time: history.
We believe that God is sovereign, that in His work of providence He controls all things according to His will. Thus, every single detail that had happened in the history of the universe is part of His plan. There's the overarching story of the salvation of mankind in Christ Jesus, and then there are countless ministories, and ministories within ministories, and so on. And every character archetype, every single fictional storyline that has ever been created, is but based upon the true stories that God had written before the foundation of the world.
So yes, I'm going directly to the fountain of all inspiration for every story ever written. I'm going to study God's script in preparation for making films.
Of course, when I study history, the lectures probably won't be just story after story. There's probably going to be a lot of training for becoming a historian, teaching you how to get accurate historical data and etcetera. But those would be great skills too. Then I can do historical researches independently, and increase my own exposure to God's story.
Then I'd probably be so filled with a grand vision of God's work from since the beginning of time that I'd have a lot to share with the church. I can share through my words, or even through film.
It's a crazy plan. It sounds exciting. Will it work? God helps me.
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