"Click", a few thoughts . . .

This afternoon I decided to go see Adam Sandler's latest movie Click. I'm not normally a fan of his comedy, but the concept behind this movie intrigued me. What would I do if I had a "remote control that remote controlled my universe"? What would you do? As I watched the movie, a thought donned on me. We do have a remote control for our universe! It's called our heart. There's a certain cycle of life I've been noticing over the years: our choices shape our hearts and in turn, our hearts shape our choices. It's a bit of a scary thought, I know, but I think it's true. We didn't get where we are today by accident, the choices we made along the way lead us to this point. Every time we make a decision, we are opening up a whole new array of choices. At the same time, we are also closing out a whole other set of choices. Each turn we make is a "point of no return."

As Christians, this shouldn't come as a surprise to us. After all, don't Solomon's Proverbs advise us to "guard our hearts, for it is the wellspring of life" (Prov. 4:23)? Interestingly enough, the prophet Jeremiah also calls the heart "deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jer. 17:9). So, one might ask, how can it be both? Well, as Adam Sandler's character find out, it all depends on who's holding the remote. Now some might say the answer here is to simply give one's heart to God. Yet as John White once wrote, "the trouble with living sacrifices is they keep crawling off the altar." Yes, it's true and I'll be the first to admit it, even we who have given our lives over to Christ still make bad choices. Even awful messy ones. The key is still to come to terms with the choices we've made and learn to live our lives differently. That's where it really helps to have an example of One Who got it all right! That one being Jesus Christ.

One more thing I should point out. Changing one's heart is not a one time thing. It's not like "Boom!" the moment you were saved you became a perfect Christian destined to walk in Christ's footsteps. No, it's still a gradual process and you will make mistakes along the way. Hey, it took you your whole life up to this point to become who you are, so it's going to take a little time to become someone different. The good news is, God understands that. That's why He sent His Son to show us the way and pay the price to enable us to walk in it. Let us each accept Jesus' invitation to "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29).