And then it turned

Gregg and I both love watching movies. While I am more partial to the romantic chick flick, and he more partial to the action/suspense, we definitely meet in the middle with comedies and drama.

After Gregg got home at lunch time (we love his half day Friday schedule), we went out and did early voting and then decided to pick up a movie. After the girls were in bed, and our Olympic viewing was over for the night, we cuddled up in bed and put on what we expected to be a funny comedy called The Invention of Lying. I admit I had only seen a few commercials but they all seemed pretty funny and I could definitely see the humor in the idea.

The movie started out pretty good. Not laugh out loud but a movie that was definitely original and it had some humorous one liners, if you could suspend your disbelief and look past the inapprorpriate idea of lying, cheating and stealing for comedic value. Overall I was pretty much enjoying it . . . . until about half way in. At that point in the movie, the man's mother is on her death bed and she tells him how scared she is about dying, as there is nothing after death. Watching his mother so upset was too much for him, so he decided to tell another lie. What made this one different, and the cause of my angry/sad post this morning? His lie was basically that there was a heaven, and a God.

You see, in this world they lived in, everyone always told the truth, and apparently that meant never mentioning anything as silly as religion because that, in the writer's opinion, is something that is made up to make people feel warm and fuzzy. I picked up immediately when he started talking that this was where he was going, but I started praying that it would end there (I know, like God would just change the ending of the movie for me!) But, it didn't. In fact, that became the new focus of the movie.

The next day people were swarming around his apartment, news reporters around the globe telling people that this man has new information on what happens after we die. He decides to then create a "story" where there is a man in the sky who controls our ups and our downs, and that if you are "good" you get to go to a nice place of eternal happiness where everyone gets a mansion, and if you are "bad" you go someplace else. That you get 3 strikes and then are out basically. He even wrote these 10 rules/statements of the "man in the sky" on the back of pizza boxes, basically to symbolize The Ten Commandments. The rest of the movie focused on this in one way or another, even having the man look like Jesus at one point.

Why did I keep watching? I kept hoping that it would turn out differently. Why am I so surprised? I mean, I know it is Hollywood and I should be used to how witty they think they are, and the total disrespect most seem to have for people of faith, but I think I was the most shocked at the people involved in this project.

People like Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey (ok, I wasn't too shocked about that one), and several other easily recognizable stars. I lost respect for them, for being involved with this movie, and that just made me sad.

As I lay there, tearing up and talking to God, I realized that I couldn't judge them for being involved in this project -- I know nothing about them, their reasons for doing the movie, their personal beliefs, or anything. But what I can certainly do is be a lot more knowledgeable about my movie selections and continue to realize that as much as we can feel we know how a certain actor or actress is by their many talk show appearances, interviews, books and prior movie selections, the only one who does truly know our hearts is God.

My prayer is that other people who watch this movie do not fall victim to the spiritual attack and start to doubt their beliefs because of the way it makes it all look so "ridiculous." I pray that it stirs a fire in our bellies to stand up and not sit quietly whenever we see the movie industry attempting to use its glamor, money, star appeal and witty writing to make us doubt the truth.

So, for anyone out there like me who may not know what this movie is really all about, I thought I would post this little warning. There are so many better choices out there then this one!

Have a wonderful weekend!