"Courageous" - a must-see movie

Sorry I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I finally watched the movie Courageous this weekend.

Having watched all of the other films directed and produced by the Kendrick brothers (Alex and Stephen), I have to say that each movie these two put together gets better and better—this is their fourth movie. Their other movies are Flywheel, Facing the Giants, and Fireproof. There are multiple plot lines in this movie, more than any of the others, that converge and twist together nicely as the story progresses, albeit even a little predictable. And it all started with an intense opening scene that looked every bit a huge Hollywood thrillfest.

Without giving too much of the main plot away, even though it can be read on Wikipedia and get the gist on their trailer, the story is about four deputies who struggle with balancing their work, their religion, and their family. One experiences a death of family member, another has financial problems and is tempted by illicit means to curb those problems.  Being a former sheriff’s deputy for over twelve years, I completely understand the camaraderie, temptations, and dangerousness they face on a daily basis.

Probably the best minor plot line in the entire movie was the life of one Javier Martinez, a Mexican-American struggling with finding work to keep food on his family’s table and a roof over their heads. By a bizarre twist of fate (bizarre, except that it was all due to the will of God), he found himself befriended by the four officers.

What both my wife and I love almost as much as the movie itself are the previews—we practically jotted down every movie we haven’t seen and added to the “must-see” list.

Psalms 4 - Who's Hands Are You In?

Psalms 4 is also known as a Evening Prayer (Psalms 3 is the Morning Prayer).

This one refers to God as your defender.  For those who insult others or what love what is worthless and false, they may pray to God but love their "stuff" even more--the stuff here in the Psalm is mentioned to be their wine and grain.

The speaker of the Psalm (David) tells in the end that when he lies down and goes to sleep, he sleeps peacefully, for he knows God keeps him perfectly safe.

Bottom line on the Psalm is this: trust in the Lord, not your stuff.  If you find yourself in trouble, your car or your home or your debts will not get you out of trouble.  God is the only one to help with that.  Put all of your problems in God's hands . . . you'll be amazed at the results.

Events happen for a reason

Growing up, I used to always say that: "Events (or things) happen for a reason."  I may not know what that reason is right away, but eventually God shows me what that is.  Whether it was not getting a job I applied for or not getting an agent to approve of my fiction query letter, or even the turmoil our family has gone through in the past year and a half with my wife's illness and our financial troubles, in the end events happen for a reason.

The same goes with Joseph, in Genesis.

From the last week's post, we covered Joseph turning from slave to governor of Egypt.  Now, starting on chapter 42, his brothers go to Egypt to buy goods, for the famine is severe.  Joseph recognized them immediately but the brothers did not.  Not all of the brothers went with though.  Benjamin, the youngest and only full-brother to Joseph (the others are half-brothers), is the only one who stayed behind.  Joseph confronts them and calls them spies.  He orders them to come back to Egypt with Benjamin or else he was going to imprison them.

As the brothers return home, they discover that all of their money has been returned to them.  They do not know what kind of miracle it was, but when they tell their father Jacob that they need to return with Benjamin, Jacob is fearful that something was going to happen to him, seen as though Benjamin was his only living son--since Joseph, as far as his knowledge was concerned, was dead.

In the end, the brothers go back with Benjamin.  After a fair amount of testing on their part, Joseph reveals who he really his: the brother they sold as a slave so many years ago.  But he is not angry with them.  He tells them that if they hadn't sold him off as a slave, he never would've had a chance to interpret the king's dream and become governor, thereby saving the people of all the lands.

Any normal person--and rightly so--would be angry with their siblings for doing this to them.  But Joseph saw the bigger picture and said it was all due to the will of God.  In the end of chapter 45, Joseph rides back home and sees his father, Jacob, once again.

Brother Joseph and the Road from Slave to Governor

Joseph was the youngest son of Jacob, and also the most loved.  He had several brothers, all of whom were jealous of Joseph.

Joseph also had a gift: he could, through God, interpret dreams.  He told his brothers of a dream he had which he interpreted to mean all of his brothers would bow down and worship him.  So his brothers came up with a scheme to, at first, kill him, then they decided to sell him as a slave to an Egyptian captain of the king's palace guards.

The story of Joseph is a long one, starting with chapter 37 and ending with the final chapter of Genesis, chapter 50.

Joseph may start out as a slave, but the Egyptian captain realizes that God works through him and appoints him to be the head of his household.  By a bizarre twist of fate, the captain's wife tries to seduce Joseph and he kept refusing until she framed him by saying he was trying to rape her.  Her husband threw Joseph in prison.  Over the next two years, the Egyptian king had two dreams no one could interpret.  He heard about Joseph and called for him.

Joseph interpreted the dreams to mean there will be seven years of abundance followed by seven years of great famine.  The king then appointed Joseph as governor of Egypt and in charge of storing up as much food as possible during the abundant years to keep them through the famine years.

This story is interesting at its basic level.  Joseph went from a pretty easy life to one of slavery, only to emerge as the head of a nation.  This takes us through chapter 41.  Next time we'll cover more on Joseph as his reign of governorship during the fourteen years of abundance and famine.

Father Knows Best

This past weekend, I spent some time camping up near Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Minnesota.  On Saturday night, after a long day of fishing (we caught 6 walleyes, between my son, father-in-law, and myself), we retired early.

However, around 1am, my youngest soon-to-be-six-year-old daughter Mykayla woke up crying.  She does this on occasion, and usually it's a nightmare and that once I wake her up, interrupting the dream, she drinks a sip of water and falls back to sleep.

Not this night.

The crying fit lasted for over an hour, in which time my in-laws started waking up too.  I prayed to God to help her get to sleep.  Sorry, He wasn't buying that one.  At least in such an easy way.  Frustrated, I got up.  I picked her up, gave her a little water, and asked her if she was okay.  Did she hurt anywhere?  (My wife and I were thinking of possible ear infections at this point).

Mykayla--whom is nicknamed KK--shook her head.

"Did you have a dream, KK?" I asked.

Again, she shook her head.

As she is a type 1 diabetic, I checked her blood sugar.  It was a little high at 481, but I did a "correction" on her diabetes pump and held her a bit longer.  I prayed to God again to let her sleep.  Minutes later, she started sobbing.  I kissed her on the cheek and asked, very softly, "Are you scared of something?"

This time she nodded.  "Bugs," she said.

I knew she had a little fear of bugs, as many kids do (oh, heck, I really, really, really, really hate spiders so go figure), so we talked a little bit about bugs.  Why were they so scary?

"They can bite," she said.

I then told her about a Pixar movie called A Bug's Life.  She giggled.  I then said that all of the bugs she knows are much, much smaller than her and that she could squash it with her finger.  Well, this got her laughing so hard that she started asking me about all of the bugs we could squash.  In the end, she said she was ready to sleep.

And sleep she did.

Afterwards, I realized that I recieved God's answer to help KK stop crying.  Father knows best, so to speak.  I needed God to work his wonder through me, to help my daughter sleep.  KK is still afraid of bugs, but at least this time she can laugh about it when we talk about the Pixar movie.

The Hatfield's and the McCoy's in the Bible?

No, the tales of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's are not in the Bible.

But there are tales that mimic their feuds.

Genesis Chapter 34 starts out with the rape of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, by a guy named Shechem, who was the head of that region of land in Canaan.  He then fell in love with her and went to Jacob to ask for her hand in marriage.  Jacob informed him that he would have to be circumcised in order for him to allow it, so Shechem did as ordered.

Three days after the circumcision, Jacob's two sons, Simeon and Levi, went into the city where Shechem and his family lived, and killed them all.  They then looted the town of all its livestock, women, and children.

Jacob was furious about this, for he didn't have an army to fight against anyone who vowed revenge for Shechem's death.  Jacob then prayed for God for protection.  God sent Jacob to Bethel, where he then named Jacob Israel and gave him the same promises as he had Abraham and Isaac, that vast nations will be descendants from you.