Monday, October 5, 2015
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Now I don't do movie reviews, and I sure don't recommend movies. But there is one they keep showing on TV over and over again, because it's got a lot of laughs in it. It's called "Ground Hog Day" with Bill Murray. If you saw it, you know the plot. He's this not very nice TV weatherman who goes to Punxsutawney, PA to broadcast that American tradition that comes from there. We're supposed to be able to predict whether or not there will be six more weeks of winter weather based on whether or not the ground hog sees his shadow on February 2nd.
Anyway, the weatherman, who has a serious attitude problem, wakes up at 6:00 a.m. the next day, only to experience exactly the same events he did the day before. And every new morning, the clock radio goes off at 6:00 a.m. and awakens him to the same old song, "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher. And day after day, he sees the same people; he experiences the same relationships, the same places, the same rhythm - even down to the guy in the diner dropping a plate the same time each day. It becomes very frustrating - experiencing the same day over and over again.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Every Day's the Same."
The plot of the movie obviously is fantasy. The plight of having the same day over and over again is reality for a lot of people. In some ways, it might describe how your life feels right now. Life has taken on this monotonous sameness - a predictability. It seems like no matter what happens, or who happens, you have the feeling of "been there, done that." Maybe your life seems to be suffering from a meaning deficit.
Actually, life was never meant to be monotonous. After all, your life was given to you by a God who creates blazing sunsets and fall colors, people with fingerprints that are like no one else who has ever been born, galaxies, comets and supernovas. Now would a Creator with that kind of creativity create us to have days that all seem the same? The only reason life would be like that is if we are, in reality, trying to live without our Creator.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, steps into our hunger for something more meaningful and more colorful when He gives us our word for today from the Word of God in John 10:10. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Now obviously, Jesus isn't talking about life in the sense of eating, breathing, and existing. We already have that kind of life. He's talking about life that's fulfilling, challenging, and satisfying - life to the full.
We don't have life like that because we don't have the Life-Giver. According to God's Book, the Bible, you and I have, in fact, taken our life out of our Creator's hands and put it in our own. In the Bible that's called sin. In God's words we are, "without hope and without God" (Ephesians 2:12).
It all seems so empty. Everyone seems as trapped in meaninglessness as you do. There seems to be no hope. Until you let Jesus Christ reconnect you to the God you have sinned against. Jesus died on that cross to pay for the sin that separates you from God. And when you put your trust in Him to take down the wall between you and God, He starts to infuse your days with a sense of meaning and destiny which you were created for. Each day you're discovering a little more of who you were born to be.
While your environment may be pretty much the same every day, your INvironment - what's in you - is experiencing ever new experiences of God's love, God's joy, God making a difference in your life, God making a difference through your life.
Maybe you've never begun this relationship that is what you were made for. In the Bible's words, you were "created by Him and for Him" but you've not really had Him in the leadership of your life. You can trust Him. He loved you enough to die for you. He'll change things you can't change because He was powerful enough to walk out of His grave and He's ready to walk into your life on your invitation. You say, 'Jesus, beginning today I am Yours. I trade the life I've been running for the life You died to give me right now."
If you want to do that, we would love to be there for you. Text us, would you, at 442-244-WORD. Or you can go to our website ANewStory.com.
Your life was never meant to be this small. There is something so much bigger - days where you are finally experiencing the One you were created by, and the One you were created for.