The Lion
King
So I’m a supposing
that everyone here has seen the lion king right? I mean it’s probably one of
the greatest movies of all time. It wasn't until last summer though that I
realized how profoundly Christian the message in the movie was. (thanks to
Aaron)
If you really watch
the Lion King you cannot help but see the similarities of "The Prodigal
Son." I mean Simba leaves the kingdom for this tropical paradise with no
responsibilities and no work. He is just living the "Hakuna Matata"
lifestyle (no worries). He’s in this beautiful place with his best buds and not
a care in the world and everything he could possibly want right? I mean that’s
the life! But something happens, and he begins to feel empty inside. He
realizes something is missing and that he wasn't made for this. He was made in
the image and likeness of his father. He wasn't made for comfort and easy
living. Or as Pope Benedict put it; "The
world offers you comfort but you were not made for comfort but for
greatness."
Watch these two
clips in order and keep in mind the Christian theme. You’ll never see this
movie again the same way. (There is a bit of an overlap on the clips)
Two things:
First, who here
hasn’t uttered a line similar to Simba’s in the first video “You said you would
always be there for me…but you’re not” when praying? Everyone goes through
these moments. When we are beaten, broken and lost and we are yelling like
Simba “why are you abandoning me!” We want to know where Christ is and why
He's not helping us, its because He’s right there on the Cross next to us saying the same
thing with us; “My God my God why have you forsaken me.” It’s in our sufferings
that we share more intimately with Christ. I don’t know about you but it’s easy
to fall into the trap of only going to God in a time of need,
tragedy, or suffering. Then, when all is well we
slowly tend to fall away from a devout prayer life because we think we don’t
need Him. Sometimes God allows the desolation or suffering to bring you back to
Himself. Sometimes God allows the suffering because there is some infection in
us that he wants to rid us of, because if left unchecked…it would destroy us.
In these moments of hardships and trial and suffering He allows us to “cast our
worries on Him” and we allow Him to truly mold us and shape us...and sometimes it hurts.
Second, the most
profound line of the movie occurs during this dialogue:
Mufasa's ghost:
[appears among the stars] Simba, you have forgotten me.
Adult Simba: No.
How could I?
Mufasa's ghost: You have forgotten who you are and so have
forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have
become.
DANG! I mean what a
line. I think this is sometimes what God must say to us when he sees us lost in
sin or worldly things. He's there screaming at us, "James you are forgetting
who you are and thus forgetting Me! You are forgetting that I made you in my
own image and likeness and I made you for greatness." It happens all too
often that we get lost in something and forget who we truly are supposed to be.
This is the problem of sin. My favorite author GK Chesterton said “And to the question, “What is meant by the
Fall?” I could answer with complete sincerity, “That whatever I am, I am not
myself.” Whatever and whoever we are, we are not our true selves when we
sin, and we are exchanging our real versions for a lie. This is what happens to
Simba, he forgets who he was called to be and thus forgets his father. We
always think that happiness and fulfillment comes from having worldly pleasure, desires and living a care free life, but in reality they come from truly giving of ourselves and
helping others. My good friend Aaron always says; "Man only finds himself in
a sincere gift of self." If you want to truly know who you are and the
greatness you were made for you have to give yourself to Christ.
I could go on, but I’ll let my man CS
Lewis wrap it up since he says it way better than I ever could:
“It is something
like that with Christ and us. The more we get what we now call
"ourselves" out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly
ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of
"little Christs," all different, will still be too few to express Him
fully. He made them all. He invented-as an author invents characters in a
novel-all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense
our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to "be
myself" without Him. …It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up
to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own. At
the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now.
There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up yourself
to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the
most "natural" men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How
monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how
gloriously different are the saints.
…The principle runs
through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your
real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your
ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end
submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep
back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours.
Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for
yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair,
rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him
everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity
God Bless
James
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