Grand Terino

This past Monday, with all the commotion of Kari being in the hospital, I messed up my work schedule in my head. So I showed up to work at 9:30am and wasn’t supposed to be there until 4pm! Not a good start to the day. Well, it was snowing and I had a lot of time to kill so I decided to use a gift card I had and go to a movie. I saw Grand Terino.

**CAUTION**

Quick warning. The movie does have language and racist comments, so if you are sensitive to that don’t watch it. It actually would not have been as good of a movie without it. It is necessary to paint the character that Eastwood plays. Also, if you are planning to watch the movie do not read the rest of this post! I will be discussing the main point of the movie. Come back and read after you see it. OK you have been warned

Clint Eastwood plays a character that is a war vet and has spent the rest of his life working the Ford lines. Thus the Grand Terino. One would think that since the movie was titled after the car that it would be about the car, but it’s not. Anyways, he is retired and the movie starts at his wife’s funeral. Now I’m not going to explain the movie in detail. I’m not a critic. But what really hit me in this movie was important and I think it is worth sharing. After his wife’s death, the priest that spent time with her before she died comes to see him. He tells him that his wife made him promise to get Clint to go to confession. Clint being the old fart that he is, blows him off. Over and over the priest comes to him trying to get him to confession. The whole time, through the dialog it seems that he made a huge mistake that he can’t forgive himself for and it is shared within the contexts of all the awful things he did in Vietnam. However, at the end (remember I told you not to read this if you hadn’t seen it), he builds a rapport with the priest and he goes to the confession. And then the bomb drops. The sin that was unforgivable; that was eating at him and made him the bitter man that he was….. can you stand the suspense? His unforgivable sin? He didn’t know his children and they didn’t know him. They grew up with him, they visited him, but they had no relationship. At the end of his life the biggest regret was not having a real relationship with his kids and their families. This hit me like a ton of bricks.

Most of you, that would be reading this, know that my dad was there but not there in my life. Two things tweeked my heart. One, does my dad regret missing a lifetime of knowing me and I him? Like Clint does he want it to change but not know how? Part of me hopes so. Part of me would be afraid that I wouldn’t know where to start either. Secondly, it made me reflect on my relationship with my own kids and I realized that I have more lost moments than I care to have. I too often rely on Kari to inform me about my children, rather than talk with my children and get to know them first hand. This was a wake up call to me. Dads we get busy with life; work, bills, honey do lists, hobbies, etc. It’s natural, we’re task oriented. But in the end I think we all will look back at the same thing. Do we know our children and do they know us? How do we start? It’s been said that a jug is filled one drop at a time. I think we need to be intentional each day to invest in our relationship with our kids. It’s not the big events like vacations and family days, it’s the small drops each day that fill us with the knowledge of others. It’s the “how was your day” and mean it moments. The playing a game together, doing choirs together, let them doing things with you when it would be easier to not have them “in the way”. I think you get the point.

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"Do you know that I love you?"

This weekend we went bowling with our neighbors to celebrate one of their kids birthdays. It was a lot of fun. I did better than I thought I would have since it’s been over four years since I last played. Anyways, while I was waiting for my turn to role around again I was standing behind a chair that Becca was sitting in, and Becca out of the blue looks straight up at me and asks me, “Daddy, do you know I love you?”. Yep, I had the same reaction.
My heart melted. Later I began thinking about it. I know that I love God, but does He know that I love Him? Ok, follow me on this. I know God knows our heart, but how do we show Him that we love Him? Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey Him. So each day when we get up and we choose to worship God and no other and we choose to follow His ways by loving others as our self, in essense we are letting Him know that we love Him.
How about you? Does God know that you love Him?
later…

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Wisdom of Yoda

Last night “Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back” was on. I haven’t seen it in years. So, I spent the night vegging in front of the TV. It was great! Although now I want to see all of them again. Anyways, while Luke is training to be a Jedi Yoda is sharing his knowledge with him and something he said jumped at me. Actually, several things did but I’m going to only hit one for now. (The eerie tease of a series)

While Luke is training he continuely fails and says, “I can’t”. But Yoda continues to teach and he says something very profound. “You must unlearn what you have learned.” Wow! How true is that? So many believers fail time and time again and they feel like they just can’t do it. Whatever ‘it’ might be; overcoming sin, stopping thoughts, letting go of the past, seeing themselves as God does, you fill in the blank. The point is from the time we are born we are being taught. But when we become a believer in Jesus we find ourselves in Luke’s shoes. We are trying to live a new way of living through the eyes of our old one. Check this out:

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

We must learn to unlearn what we have learned. This happens as we meditate on God’s Word. The more we spend in God’s presence, the more we learn to think like God, the less we think according to the world. And the pay off is pretty nice. Finish verse 2, “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Want to know what God’s will in your life is? Start unlearning what you have learned. That Yoda guy’s pretty smart.

later…

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Lessons From the Valley

The last week and a half has really been awful. It started with Kari getting sick and developing stroke like symptoms and having her in the hospital for 9 days. Then Kimmi got sick and started vomiting and then Becca started the next day the night before we were supposed to be moving. All night. So I moved after 2 hours of sleep. I hit a point where I thought of the seen in the movie The Little Rascals, where Alfalfa is having a bad day and he looks up at the sky and says, “…and the sky opened up and God looked down and said, ‘I hate you Alfalfa’.” Here’s the clip (about 5 minutes in, but the whole clip is great) That’s how I felt. I was wondering what I did I do to make God so mad. I even hit a point where I was in full self-pity mode and thinking I was Job.

But I ‘m not Job. I’m just I guy that had a bad couple of weeks. God tells us in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This doesn’t mean He makes the situations good. But he works for the good; doing what is good for us. In other words, in all things no matter what the situation, good or bad, he works within us to bring good within us. It’s a promise that He will continue to do the work He started in us and the situation doesn’t matter.

For instance, after I was done with my pity party, I learned some things this past week. I learned some things that truly humbled me. I learned that I am blessed were blessings count most. I learned that I have a wonderful wife and I need to acknowledge it more. I often give Kari a hard time about not getting as much done as I think she should. You know what they say, “you don’t know what you have until you have lost it”. Well this week I was running like a chicken with it’s head cut off and I realized how much she does. I found a new appreciation for her and all the hard work she does. I apologized to her and told her how great she was. Although I’m not sure if she remembers it with all the drugs they had her on. I also learned that I have a loving family of believers around me. I was humbled by the multitude of prayer and support this week. We had people praying, watching the girls, visiting Kari in the hospital and moving us to Burnsville. I even had family drive 800 miles to help with the kids. I am truly blessed.

So what’s the point? The point is this; don’t let the situation distract you from the blessing of God in your life. He is active and working, for our good, each and every day. He uses life and the situations of life, good and bad, to mold us and shapes into the likeness of Jesus.

I’ll leave with this promise: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” James 1:12

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