God uses the craziest things to get our attention. Seriously.
Over the last months, I've been having a hard time trusting God, one side effect from that has been dealing with massive anxiety attacks. In the Bible, the apostle Paul talks about having a thorn that he has to deal with. We don't know exactly what that thorn is, but I know what mine is right now: anxiety. I've been slowly learning to deal with it, with the help of my family and friends. But anyways, it's been really hard to transition into life in here LA and Hollywood because I'm afraid to feel. Why? Because to feel would be to let emotions in, which in turn can get out of control, which can cause that pesky anxiety. And the root of all of that stems from not putting my full trust in God's plan for me.
I think what I hate the most about not trusting God is that I KNOW in my heart that that's the single only thing I can do. I know I believe in God, His grace, and His plan for me. I know that He's large and in charge. So why can't I just trust Him? Because my head hasn't been letting me. My life has been so crazy, with so much change in the last few years. Ever since I left home after high school, it's been non-stop change. I went to Ecola, my girlfriend broke up with me, I dated another girl, she broke up with me, Ecola ended, SMT training, SMT, moved to Michigan, attended Compass, produced a couple short films, graduated, moved to Los Angeles, was an intern, went home to Oregon for a month, came back to LA, lived with my best friend's family, worked a crap job, got a great new job, moved to North Hollywood, and have started pre-production on a short film. It's crazy! I literally have not had time to let things sink in for any amount of time for the last 2 years running. I've been just doing my thing and not really grasping that it's happening. And the same is true now.
But God can get your attention in the craziest ways.
This morning I watched the original The Omen. Now, I really did go into this movie with the mindset that it would probably be evil and bad and something "a Christian shouldn't watch". But as I watched the film, I found myself thinking about God's huge plan for the world. The Bible is incredibly plain spoken about God's plan. God knew from the beginning that the Lucifer would become the Devil and we would mess up at the whole perfection thing, so he put his plan into motion from the beginning. The Bible is the story of God constantly saying "Guys! I got this!" And the same is true all the way up to the end of the story, which most of is chronicled in the books of Daniel and Revelation. In these books, God speaks of an Antichrist which will rise and take over the world through peaceful means. You see, Lucifer fell because he became prideful and wanted to be like God. In the end times spoken of in the aforementioned books, Lucifer will be allowed to have his way with the world, but in the end, Christ will come down from heaven once again and kick the Devil's butt. There is much speculation about how the Devil will do all of this, but the story told in The Omen actually is a legitimate idea about how the Antichrist will arrive on Earth. You see, the Devil likes to copy God, possibly a way to prove that he is just as cool (which of course, he's not). So it is possible that the Devil will copy God and send his "son", just as God did with Christ.
This whole story line has gotten me thinking about the status of my trust in God. See, we know that God is in charge. He knows what is going to happen to the world from beginning to end, including how each and every one of our lives will go. Seeing how that is portrayed in The Omen, even though it's not a story about God, for me it was a reminder of how God knows exactly how the end times will play out and how He's in control of every aspect of it, even the Devil and Antichrist. God is in control. He always has been, and He always will be. How awesome is that?
Why is there evil in the world? Maybe one reason is to show us that even though it exists and bad things are allowed to happen, God uses those things to draw us closer to Him. I know when I'm in the dark valleys of life, I cling harder to Him.
I'm so glad that God knows me so well inside and out that He can use the craziest things to get my attention. And I love that so incredibly much.
