Last night I wondered if Father’s Day would find my dad back in the hospital. He gave us a scare when his blood sugar dipped pretty low. Of course, we didn’t know that was the reason for his symptoms. But they were serious enough that I ended up calling paramedics for my mom. Then I put my jeans back on (I was dressed for bed) and got ready to head to the hospital. Thank the Lord for paramedics who knew what to do. They gave my dad some orange juice, which brought his sugar levels back to normal.

So Father’s Day turned out much happier for all of us than it might have. My dad got to come over and have apple and strawberry pie. (I made one of each, so naturally, he had to try a little of both.) :) My family is a pie loving family – a dessert we simply don’t pass up. :) I’m so glad Daddy got to come over today – he even drove the car and was back to his normal self.

My husband Randy enjoyed his day as well, though he is still recovering from out-patient surgery. We barbecued steaks – tried a new seasoning that was great – and later watched a movie.

The movie, Facing the Giants, while some might think it was good, was a bit disappointing. The Christian message almost promoted a prosperity gospel, as though if you surrender everything to the Lord, suddenly your life will be perfect and all the stuff that was going wrong will turn around and come out right.

The idea was that “nothing is impossible with God.” I agree. That’s Biblical. God can do whatever He wants, and we should live our lives to His glory and praise Him whether we win or lose. The problem I had with the movie was that after they surrendered to the Lord, they didn’t lose. Oh, they lost one game and there was some suggested losses, but in the end, everything wrapped up into a neat package of success.

Spoiler coming:
In the movie the coach’s job is threatened, his team is losing, he’s got a bad smell in his house, his car is falling apart, and he is infertile (and his wife wants a baby.) After he studies God’s Word and prays, surrendering all to the Lord, little by little, he finds new purpose and gets his team to work harder and they start winning. He finds a dead animal in his house causing the smell, someone gives him a new truck, his team wins the state championship, and his wife gets pregnant. God can do anything, and in this case He fixed all this guy’s problems. Two years later they’ve got one kid and one on the way and two state championship trophies on the shelf. So their life became perfect and stayed that way?
End of spoiler

Christian writers want to make a difference in the world, they want their books to bring glory to God and point others to Him. I suspect that is the goal of Christian film makers as well, but frankly, I’ve seen very few Christian films that have reached the level of craft that their secular counterparts have done. And let’s face it – if you could remove the language and a few suggestive scenes – there are quite a few good secular movies out there with good story and even a decent underlying message.

What I fear is happening among Christian films today is that they are stronger on message than they are on story. Is that the purpose of Christian films? To preach or to provide alternatives to immoral entertainment?

There is a place for preaching, but I’m not sure a movie is place for it – or a novel for that matter. Show a story that deals with themes of forgiveness and redemption, like the book of Ruth in the Old Testament, or the prodigal son, and you’ll show the message of salvation without being preachy.

But give us a story with a heavy-handed message that shows problems wrapped up too neatly, are too predictable, don’t display characters as real enough and you’ll be giving readers a false view of Christianity. I believe we do a disservice to unbelievers when we suggest that all they have to do is pray a prayer and their life will be perfect.

Will our lives change dramatically if we surrender them to Christ? Absolutely! We will be forever changed if we confess our sins and turn our lives over to Jesus and live to obey Him. But Jesus promised persecution and suffering in this life. He said, “In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

He did promise the abundant life here on earth, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never face trials and everything will go right as long as we’re right with Him.

I think Facing the Giants had the right idea when they presented the audience with the need to trust God and not give up. But the execution of the story left me feeling like the message was not entirely Biblically realistic because it left off the stuff that could still go wrong in life. Maybe we were just supposed to know that.

I’m not one to usually review books or movies and publicly point out flaws. I know a lot of Christians liked this movie, and I don’t want to discourage those who made it. But as a writer, I saw a lot of flaws. Predictability, cliched dialogue, lack of creativity, but mostly, I was a bit troubled by the prosperity/success message.

The “surrender all to Christ no matter what” message is right on and was there in the dialogue, but the actions/blessings that followed the message with everything neatly “fixed” showed that surrender equaled success.

And unfortunately, actions speak louder than words.