I just watched a movie where 4 out of 5 of the main characters died a brutal death. And of course as in any good movie, I was already in love with all the main characters as if they were people I knew personally. Safe to say, it was not an uplifting movie. But I should have seen that coming when I realized it was a WWII movie.
I've read and am re-reading a book called 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien. It's a book full of the author's personal war experiences from Vietnam. He quotes a close friend of his saying, "A true war story has no morale."
I didn't understand that until I watched this movie.
I was so thrown off when the movie ended with one main character surviving, alone. God brought me to that movie tonight and so of course at the end I couldn't help asking why. I asked, "What was the point? Why did you want me to see this? That was horribly depressing."
The movie didn't even go anywhere in the end. . . And that was the point. The point was there was no morale. And that hit me like a ton of bricks.
4 out of 5 main characters died. The characters I was already in love with. And the one I loved the most, survived. He survived alone and traumatized. And that's the point. The main character didn't go anywhere. He came in the beginning of the movie feeling defeated and hopeless. Then he left the same way.
Despair, hopelessness, heartbreak, bitterness, anger, depression-all of it. It doesn't go anywhere.
And that's what hit me tonight like a ton of bricks.
This morning I had a conversation with friends about the head knowledge I have that knows God's joy and peace is deeper and wider than any sorrow. But it's not deeper. It is just deep. Because there is no depth to sorrow. None at all.
Sorrow, despair, hopelessness, heartbreak, bitterness, anger, depression- none of it has depth. It's flat. It's thin. It's shallow. It's not less deep, because there is no depth at all.
It's repetitive.
It's repetitive because it's shallow.
It just doesn't go anywhere.
So what was the point of the movie? It didn't even go anywhere. It felt hopeless at the beginning and the end. Sure there was some rise and fall in between. But ultimately, it went no where.
And that was the point.
It was God's way of slapping me across the face. . . Gently, of course. . . To tell me that my sorrow, my despair, my hopelessness-everything I'm addicted to and comfortable in-it's all shallow. It all goes nowhere.
Nowhere except for death.
But Jesus came so that we could have life abundantly. How is it abundant? Because His life is deep! And it is wide! And joy and peace are deep and wide. It will all flood our hearts if we let it. It will take us deeper than we could ever swim on our own.
Or we can spin round and round in our own hurricane that goes nowhere.
It's why people like Taylor Swift write the same songs on every album about different people. Her heartbreak is shallow. So naturally, it is repetitive. It's ultimately going nowhere.
But we don't have to go nowhere. We can go some where.
In fact, the director of this movie is a Christian. One of the main characters was a strong Christian man. The movie had Christ references through out and Christian beliefs and morals.
I'd be really interested to know what the director meant for the point of the movie to be. But it just goes to show how infinite God is. One thing He creates can speak in so many different ways. It doesn't matter what the director meant. The movie did something in my heart, because God used it for his purposes to prevail. How? Because God is infinite.
God is not flat. He is not shallow or thin. He is not repetitive. He is not in a box.
God is deep and wide. He is vast and breathtaking. He is infinite. If we follow him, where we go will always have purpose.
