War Room …..The Movie

War Room: The movie is about an affluent family who seem to have everything. But it is soon apparent that the parents are tense and argumentative, and disillusioned with each other. The daughter, aged about nine, is absolutely adorable, but of course pained about her parents bickering.

A wise senior citizen appears, who might be an angel in the way she challenges the wife about her choices, and provides Biblical wisdom. The senior lady is feisty, and even confronts a mugger on the street by invoking power in the name of Jesus. Reluctantly, the wife adopts a spiritual stance, and at a time when her husband runs into trouble in his business dealings.

The turnaround in both adults’ attitudes is heart-warming and makes us alternately cry and cheer. We are convinced that with God anything is possible.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I found the War Room compelling in its portrayal of humans who turn to God when they are broken, and their faith slowly comes alive like an Indian Paintbrush flower in springtime in the desert. Although it’s an old story, as old as the Bible, I know first-hand that it keeps happening in real life today. The Biblical keys of repentance, and grace, and forgiveness are as clear as a mountain stream. Priorities are changed for the family, and God now comes first….. totally.

After I returned home from the movie, I switched on BBC News and was confronted by a scene where refugees from Syria were scrambling to get through windows into a packed railway carriage on its way to Austria. We have all seen images of the refugees on their dangerous journey from Syria to Turkey to Greece (via smugglers’ overloaded rafts), then to Serbia, Hungary, and Austria or Germany.

Everything they own is what they are carrying! Some of these people, now numbering 500,000, are Christians. They feel they have to escape, because otherwise they may be decapitated by ISIS, and their bodies strung up on telephone poles, with their heads rolling on the ground below. For more info on the refugee crisis click on my previous blog.

My mind wanted to compare the affluent Christians in the War Room movie with the refugee Christians stumbling across Europe. So I listed my thoughts….. click on the image to enlarge it (then back-arrow to return to blog). The contrast is quite stunning. It occurred to me that as Christians we should be doing both.

We can be learning to access the resources of God for our own spiritual growth and the growth of our family (introverted position). But at the same time, we can be providing a small part of our resources to provide tangible assistance to the disenfranchised amongst the third world’s peoples (extroverted position). Wouldn’t it be good to try for a balance….. to honor God in both areas?

Conclusion: The elderly “angel” prayed that God would direct her to help the wife of the War Room family, and she acted on this. Is it possible the TV pics of the dispossessed refugees is God’s way of pricking our hearts so that we send some dollars to organizations who specialize in helping refugees and the poor in general. For example, World Vision, Life Outreach International, Doctors without Borders.

If those raggedy refugees we see on TV came marching through our street, carrying their young kids on their shoulders and their only belongings in gym bags, would we fetch them some water bottles? Would we buy them some bread and cheese? Would we give them a pillow so the kids wouldn’t have to sleep with their head on their shoes? Help Someone to Hope!

Meanwhile Pope Francis is coming to the USA this week. One of his messages will be for Christians to beware of excess materialism, but instead to help the marginalized. Who are the marginalized? A person or group in society who are treated as insignificant or peripheral, according to the dictionary. Certainly fits the refugees. Jesus is a pretty good example of one who did not ignore the marginalized in his society, even helping marginalized people from another country (Samaria).

Comments? Your comments are meaningful for other readers. Please add them to the Comment box at the bottom of the blog.

The Gray Nomad
Probing the practice of Christian believers……

You shall give to him freely without begrudging it; because for this the Lord will bless you in all your work and in all you undertake. For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor in your land.” (Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15).

Please share this blog with your friends.

If you know someone who would like to receive these two-weekly blogs, please send their email request to me at ian@higgs-palmer.com