The Movie of Life

So I recently started reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love. I've made it through the first three chapter so far and God is teaching me so much, and convicting me a lot too. I definitely recommend reading it. I want to share a excerpt from chapter two that compares our lives to a movie. It was definitely a kind of "holy slap in the face" to me.
-taye


It Sort of Goes Like This...

Suppose you are an extra in an upcoming movie. You will probably scrutinize that one scene where hundreds of people are milling around, just waiting for that two-fifths of a second when you can see the back of your head. Maybe your mom and your closest friend get excited about that two-fifths of a second with you...maybe. But no one else will realize it is you. Even if you tell them, they won't care.

Let's take it a step further. What if you rent out the theater on opening night and invite all your friends and family to come see the new movie about you? People will say "You're an idiot! How could you think this movie is about you?"

Many Christians are even more delusional than the person I have been describing. So many of us think and live like the movie of life is all about us.

Now Consider the Movie of Life...
God creates the world. (Were you alive then? Was God talking to you when He proclaimed "It is good" about all He had just made?)
Then people rebel against God (Who, if you haven't realized it yet, is the main character in this movie), and God floods the earth to rid it of the mess people made of it.
Several generations later, God singles out a ninety-nine-year-old man called Abram and makes him the father of a nation (did you have anything to do with this?).
Later, along come Joseph and Moses and many other ordinary inadequate people that the movie is also not about. God is the one who picks them and directs them and works miracles through them.
In the next scene, God sends judges and prophets to His nation because the people can't seem to give Him the one thing He asks of them (obedience).
And then, the climax: the Son of God is born among the people whom God still somehow loves. While in this world, the Son teaches His followers what true love look like. Then the Son of God dies and is resurrected and goes back up to be with God.
And even though the movie isn't quite finished yet, we know what the last scene holds. It's the scene I already described in chapter one: the throne room of God. Here every being worships God who sits on the throne, for He alone is worthy to be praised.
From start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us? Our scenes in the movie, our brief lives, fall somewhere between the time Jesus ascends into heaven (Acts) and when we will all worship God on His throne in heaven (Revelation).

We have only our two-fifths-of-a-second-long scene to live. I don't know about you, but I want my two-fifths of a second to be about my making much of God.