Living a life worthy of the movies…
We go to the movies to escape the boredom of our day to day lives and be confronted with stories of danger, daring, and insurmountable odds. If real life were that interesting, we would pay people $10.75 to follow them around for two hours. Unfortunately, real life is often not that interesting. We don’t want real life, we want movies.
It is interesting then, to notice that out of the five films nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Motion Picture Drama category, four of them are based off of true stories. It is also interesting to notice that between the categories of Best Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, seven out of the ten nominees are playing characters based on real life people whose movies are based off of their actual lives.
The best movies of the year, the ones that are most highly acclaimed, the majority of them are not movies at all, but simply real life stories told on the screen. This serves as proof for my theory that a life rooted in passion, drive, and love tells a better story than any screenwriter could ever dream up. It’s like God is the ultimate storyteller, weaving amazing tales of bravery and love through the lives of His children, and the screenwriters are simply using His ideas secondhand.
It is incredibly possible to live a life worthy of the movies. There’s reason though, why so few do it.
Here’s the catch, the life that is turned into an inspirational, tear-jerking film does not feel like a movie when we’re in the middle of living it. Solomon Northup, the man whose journey through US slavery inspired the film 12 Years a Slave, probably did not feel like he was living a movie when he was kidnapped and thrown onto a plantation to be beaten and pick cotton. When Nelson Mandela faced hatred, violence, and prison time, my guess is he didn’t feel he was living some motivational story in which he would be played by the dashing Idris Alba.
The problem is, many of us want to live a life like the movies, but we only want to live the end of the story, we want the son to come home, the man to be freed, the team to win the big game. We want the Cinderella ending, but we refuse to go through the Solomon Northup and Nelson Mandela middles. Real life doesn’t just give us the desired end, real life gives us the difficult middle of the story as well, and when we’re in that difficult middle, it doesn’t really feel like we’re living a movie. We don’t want real life, we want the movies.
Here’s the….”bizarro catch.” I believe that God desires to tell incredible stories through the lives of each and every one of His children. God is eagerly waiting for men and women who are willing to live the hard middle of the story so that He can carry them to the inspirational end. You want to a live a life worthy of the movies? Good! Cause God is telling a new story everyday and the filmmakers can’t really keep up. So why live a life worthy of the movies, when with God’s calling we live a life that’s even better?
It is interesting then, to notice that out of the five films nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Motion Picture Drama category, four of them are based off of true stories. It is also interesting to notice that between the categories of Best Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, seven out of the ten nominees are playing characters based on real life people whose movies are based off of their actual lives.
The best movies of the year, the ones that are most highly acclaimed, the majority of them are not movies at all, but simply real life stories told on the screen. This serves as proof for my theory that a life rooted in passion, drive, and love tells a better story than any screenwriter could ever dream up. It’s like God is the ultimate storyteller, weaving amazing tales of bravery and love through the lives of His children, and the screenwriters are simply using His ideas secondhand.
It is incredibly possible to live a life worthy of the movies. There’s reason though, why so few do it.
Here’s the catch, the life that is turned into an inspirational, tear-jerking film does not feel like a movie when we’re in the middle of living it. Solomon Northup, the man whose journey through US slavery inspired the film 12 Years a Slave, probably did not feel like he was living a movie when he was kidnapped and thrown onto a plantation to be beaten and pick cotton. When Nelson Mandela faced hatred, violence, and prison time, my guess is he didn’t feel he was living some motivational story in which he would be played by the dashing Idris Alba.
The problem is, many of us want to live a life like the movies, but we only want to live the end of the story, we want the son to come home, the man to be freed, the team to win the big game. We want the Cinderella ending, but we refuse to go through the Solomon Northup and Nelson Mandela middles. Real life doesn’t just give us the desired end, real life gives us the difficult middle of the story as well, and when we’re in that difficult middle, it doesn’t really feel like we’re living a movie. We don’t want real life, we want the movies.
Here’s the….”bizarro catch.” I believe that God desires to tell incredible stories through the lives of each and every one of His children. God is eagerly waiting for men and women who are willing to live the hard middle of the story so that He can carry them to the inspirational end. You want to a live a life worthy of the movies? Good! Cause God is telling a new story everyday and the filmmakers can’t really keep up. So why live a life worthy of the movies, when with God’s calling we live a life that’s even better?
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