Church Lesson without going to Church

Phil and I were really good about going to church before we got married. We made it a super priority along with several other very good habits (eating well and working out). But since we got married, life has just be CRAZY. I am not even sure why or how it happened, but things just haven't been "settled" I guess you could say.

So last week we were working on fixing that and we went to church. Well... it was one of the most depressing sermons I have heard in a while. The last we were in church before that was at our wedding. Happiest day of our lives. Bright future ahead of us. Sunshine and daisies. You get the picture. Then the sermon was about loss, grief and death. Losing your spouse, having a young child die, stuff like that. Basically Phil and I were both just trying to not burst into tears in the middle of church. Talk about having your worst nightmare thrown in front of you. Now I know life doesn't offer a guarantee good time, and that grief and loss are a part of life. But I don't really want to have to think about it too much until I get. I am not totally selfish though. I understand that there are tons of people (unfortunately) in the congregation that needed to hear that message. So it was good for them. It made me want to cry.

So back to this Sunday...

We had every intention of heading to church, but we just weren't super jazzed about it after last week. Plus, Phil had a super big important meeting today he needed to be uber-prepared for so it was ok for him to have some extra time during the day to work on that. While he worked, I did house stuff and I watched some TV whilst doing so. It just so happened that pretty much the only thing that looked remotely interesting on was The Devil's Advocate.




It was super interesting. Not sure why. Towards the end of the movie, the Devil (played by Al Pacino who makes an excellent villian) has a monologue where he talks about how he has been on earth, doing work to create this evil society where people think God doesn't care about them and that they should give into every temptation they have because they can basically. He talks about how easy it is to do that and how difficult it is to please God and talks as if God is a huge prankster for giving us free will and then laws to abide by. And as I am listening to this, I am realizing how right on most of it is. Obviously I don't believe that God doesn't care about his people. But the part about how the Devil has been working on turning the society towards sin is so true. And it was kind of a good eye opener. The whole movie gives example after example about how society has turned towards sin. Avoiding sin is hard. Giving into temptation is the easy thing to do. But we are supposed to avoid sin to be closer to God. And it is no wonder that society in general feels so distant from God when sin is what pulls you away from God. It is basically just a downward spiral away from God if you think about it. The more you sin, the further you get from God. The further you get from God, the less you avoid sin, thus pulling you further away from God. I wonder how much society would change if we (collectively) could pull away from temptation?

I won't give the ending to the movie away, but it was also a good lesson about how even after we learn lessons and choose righteousness over sin, the Devil is right back at it, working away and challenging us all over again.

I don't know if I was just open to the message of the movie or what, but it was definitely a good lesson for me. It spoke to me. Just something to think about.

The movie also tries to paint lawyers in a very bad light, but I won't take that message to heart. :)



Love, Mrs. Janney