What we can get out of Bruce Almighty

Most nights, when trying to relax, I typically either put in a TV series that I have on DVD or I'll throw in a movie. The other night, after being tired of watching the same shows over and over and over....and over, I decided to put in a movie I hadn't watched for a while. So I scanned through the movies we have and I landed on Bruce Almighty.

I quickly realized that this was probably the wrong choice for wanting to fall asleep. As I was laying there listening to the familiar lines in the movie, my mind decided to go a little ADD...okay, maybe slightly more than a little. All of a sudden as the scene's I'd seen a bunch of times roll on the screen, my mind starts turning...a lot. 

Here are some of the parallels that my mind made that night:

Movie:

After being fired from his job as newscaster, Bruce is driving and begging God for a sign. As soon as the word "sign" is spoken, a truck full of signs pulls out in front of them. Several of the signs are saying such things as: caution, construction, do not enter. Instead of looking at the signs, you hear him say, "What's this joker doing?" then proceeds  to speed around the vehicle, only to find a road block.

My Mind:

This was where my mind started spinning. I couldn't help but think about how often we ask for a sign, but are rarely patient enough to wait for it, or if it's the sign we don't want, then we ignore it  completely. Then we wonder why we ran into a road block.

Movie:

After having a heated conversation with God, Bruce's beeper keeps going off. The same number, time and time again. After throwing his beeper through the window, and a car...or two...running over it, destroying it, he hears it going off in the middle of the street. He then decides to call the number. When he does, he is instructed to go down to a building for a "job interview". Once inside of the building and to the floor he needs to be, all he sees is a room of white with a ladder in the middle. Above the ladder is a whole with someone working. God (played by Morgan Freeman) asks if the light he just repaired is working right, the light turns on and blind's Bruce.

(This is essentially what you see in the movie)

My Mind:

As soon as I saw the light, followed by the look on Bruce's face, my mind recalled the times when I read something, hear something, or see something that make me have one of those "Duh" moments. This time I thought, man how often does God's truth shine so brightly that we feel like we're blind to anything else? 

Movie:

After being told that he had God's power, Bruce decides to try out his "powers" while he's eating lunch. Now, I don't want to focus as much on Bruce's actions, but on a fellow diner that was watching him. First his looks start out due to curiosity then they turn to disbelief and finally the final look...the one of I'm getting away from him, he's WEIRD.

My Mind:

Often, when we act differently (like we're called to do as followers of Christ anyway) we often get these same looks. You know the ones...the ones that tell you exactly what the other person thinks of you. Honestly, we should get looks like that, because it means we're living right. It means we're living according to God's word instead of according to the ways of the world.

Movie:
During Bruce's first newscast, chaos begins to break out everywhere around him. As they're getting ready to cover the story, Bruce realizes that his taste of God's power has caused this. He then decides that he needs to go meet up with God, he bails out of the newscast saying "Ladies and Gentleman, possibly the biggest news story we've ever covered and...I've got...to...go." At that moment he realized that he couldn't do anything right without God.

My Mind:

When I saw that scene, I couldn't help but think about the time when we first come to the all consuming knowledge of God's abounding, unlimited love. When we realize that the only way we can do anything for this world is with His help. The day we allow Christ to become the savior of our lives.

Side Note:

Throughout the entire movie, we see what happens when a mere human gets a taste of God's power, or even a false sense of power. We tend to use it for our own good and then we become astonished when everything falls apart. 

You gotta love those random moments that actually help and bring revelation as opposed to just being silly.