24th Mar 2008
Easter Sunday, 2008
Today was movie day at All Nations Church, which is exactly what it sounds like, a day where we got to watch a movie in place of a sermon. I used to love movie day in school because that meant I could sleep through class and not have to listen to a boring lecture, much like how I bet people felt today. (J/K Sam) The film, called “The 180 Life” was made by HenMin, which is what I call the collaboration of Henry and Ahnmin, two uniquely talented members of our church. I tried to go with AhnRy but it seemed a bit unfair, HenMin works better because both get 3 letters. (Not to mention ”AhnRy” sounds diabolically French.)
HenMin never fails to deliver, and today was no exception. The film was, for lack of a better word, amazing. It was basically a video collage of 5 different people’s testimonies, complete with visual and metaphorical aids. I’m sure each story could speak to different people in a number of different ways. If you screened the movie in front of 100 people you would probably get 100 different reactions. The story that I responded to the most was Stu Still’s. His story was about how his entire life was basically stuck in pack-rat mode. He would earn as much money as he could and hoard as much of it as possible, saving for a house, car, nice things, etc. He placed the value of his entire existence in money and physical objects. Much like how I used to live.
I grew up poor. Some would say very poor, but I wouldn’t say I knew what extreme poverty was. I lived in people’s basements, people who would let my family stay the night and such. I never really knew what it was like for myself to be hungry, because my parents made sure that I wasn’t. But I do know what it’s like to be hungry now, because I remember and appreciate how my parents went hungry to make sure my sister and I weren’t. To this day I get aggravated when I see people wasting food. Even now, when I go out to eat with church members, often times I see some person (Usually a female) unable to finish most of a hamburger or something and throw it away. I can’t help but think about how nice it would be to go transport that uneaten food back to my parents of 15-20 years ago, who watched me with smiles on their mouths, love in their hearts, and nothing in their stomachs, while I stuffed my face, blissfully unaware of what they were going through.
Growing up this way has pretty much forced me to put a lot of value on money. When I went to college, all I thought about was “how am I going to make the most money?” I had many different plans for my life. Had I followed any of them, I might be a billionaire right now, rich, pompous, fat(ter) and miserable. Thankfully I encountered a life change when I accepted Christ into my life, and now I’m poor, pompous, fat, and ridiculously happy.
In “The 180 Life”, Stu talks about how he came to Christ, and became convicted to change his entire way of looking at things. He started giving away more and more of his worldly possessions, and strangely, started to feel more and more like he was living the way he was meant to be. His entire value system changed. It was no longer his house he wanted to build, it was God’s house, and God’s Kingdom. If I were to have seen this movie when I was in high school, I might have walked out on it. These people just don’t get it, I would say to myself. It’s easy enough for them to say all that crap about giving till it hurts, but they don’t go hungry at night, regardless of how much they give. They weren’t the ones going from home to home looking for shelter on a cold winter’s night. They just don’t know what it’s like, I would say. How can you give till it hurts when it hurts just to give?
When I became saved I had answers to these questions. In the bible, God promises us certain things. One of the things he promised us was, if we tithe faithfully, aka put our faith in him to provide for us, he would provide for us in abundance. The way I see it now is, God is the perfect Father. Even if you have an extraordinarily crappy father on earth, he feels the pressure to provide for you, regardless of whether he succumbs to that pressure or not, it is there. If your father on Earth is a good father, and he promises you that if you get good grades he will buy you a bicycle, you, as his child, when you bring home a report card sporting straight A’s, should expect your father to produce the aforementioned riding apparatus. Your father, on his part, will feel the pressure of making the promise to his child, and if he’s a good father, will go out and get you a friggin bike.
Now think of that scenario, only multiply it by say, (we’ll stick to small numbers here) infinity. God, your perfect Father in Heaven, has the entire universe at his disposal, and he has promised his children (IE, you, me, everyone) that if we put our faith in him, he will provide for our needs. If you, as a child, can make your earthly and imperfect father feel the pressure of holding up his end of the bargain, how much more would the perfect Father be moved to fulfill his promise if you do what he says? My parents have been tithing their whole lives, even when 10 percent of what we had would mean the difference between eating that night or not. And now, God has blessed my parents with their own house, two doting children and a constantly stocked refrigerator. Over the years, I have learned through their example and countless others that when you put the pressure on God the way a child puts pressure on his/her father to fulfill their end of a promise, God will always make good. You can expect that.
Thank you Stu, Eric, Joy, Elizabeth, and Henry for sharing your testimonies. They were all powerful in many different ways. Thank you HenMin for doing such a fantastic job of making that movie. I saw how hard you guys worked at getting everything just right, and I think I speak for all of ANC when we say it was a job incredibly well done, even if I did have to sacrifice my room for the whole night before. Thanks to Pastor Sam for coming up with the idea for “The 180 Life”. And last but most, thank you Lord for keeping your promises. Always.
Happy Easter Everybody.
- PK