Today was a day of rest, to watch all FOUR Rambo movies and eat my planned meals. My take away from the series is this:God made us who we are.
Don't ignore it. Wrestle with it,
fight with it but in the end, accept it.
As Christians, we have certainty that God made us to bring Himself glory through our circumstances and through our lives. The blood of Jesus washed away our misgivings, our misunderstanding and our mistakes. We no longer live in the bondage of self.
Rambo had to come full circle with who he is. A full blooded combat soldier. Who among us in recovery has never felt that way? I know I have. Take up my cross and follow Him to the end of the age. No matter how heavy or how lonely or how hard at times it may be, I pick up the weight of the cross and carry it as Jesus did for me.
Rambo came home after his service in Vietnam to a country that hated him. He returned to Thailand where he felt he belonged, where his friends died. He lost all hope in the world. "The world never changes." Rambo struggled and didn't see the benefit of who God made him to be. A protector of people's freedom, of our freedom.
Then came a woman named Sarah Miller, a Christian missionary asking him to take their team into Burma so they can bring medical supplies and hope for a people living through 60 years of oppression and genocide. Sarah listened to the words he was saying about her "going home" but more importantly heard the anguish of his heart in what he did not say.
The beginning of what you're about to watch is difficult but truly depicts the savage violence that plagues Burma. From my work at Bright Hope, what's really happening is worse. Stay with it. If you do I think you'll find what Sarah says to Rambo very thought provoking. This link will take you to You Tube to watch the video. (Open another tab, come back to this page, copy the link then hit enter. If you want to see the movie full screen click on the button to the right of the time, sound and HQ buttons. It's red and will enlarge the picture as you increase the inner box size. Press escape to return to the normal size. When the movie clip is over, you can return to my blog.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oGx0OJnTjo
Did you hear it? "Maybe you've lost your faith in people but you must still be faithful to something. You must still care about something. Maybe we can't change what is but trying to save a life is not wasting your life, is it?"
That's the message of Jesus wrapped up in a few sentences. We are not supposed to place our faith in people but in Him. We can care about people but ultimately it is He in whom our faith lies. The suffering in this world will go on until the day of Christ's return. Until then we are commissioned by God to do what we can to help.
I pray you have a missionary, ministry or other outreach resource that risks their own lives for the sake of another. It's never a waste of our treasure or the lives of our friends to save a life and have that life transformed by the work of God into an eternal life.
Is it?
Don't let the theme fool you.
There's a peaceful ending to the movie.
