March 18, 2024

My ‘God’s Not Dead’ journey

The past three days have been filled with emotion and faith, and now I find myself in the office at midnight on Thursday writing my column.

A great man once said, “The way I know your my son is that you love with everything you have and that I can feel your heart and know you’ve done good.”

I remember hearing those words coming from my father’s voice and it still brings tears to my eyes. The journey over the past three days has found me with millions of emotions looking at the world today and wondering if this is truly real.

Monday, while checking the newsfeed on Facebook, I noticed it was trending that the Christian Community was outraged by “Noah.” The proof was shown through the many blogs and website comments filled with Christians screaming about how that the film was outlandish and no one should go see it.

The marketing behind “Noah” has shown it was how the studio saw the story of Noah. I believe they took it to an extreme, turning four pages of the Bible into a three-hour movie. But, simply put, it wasn’t just that the Christian community focused its energy on “Noah,” but that most of those same comments were urging others to see “God’s Not Dead” instead.

I wondered why couldn’t the Christian community just let “Noah” be and use all its pent-up energy to just promote the top-five box office powerhouse, “God’s Not Dead.” And then, while having dinner with friends that night, I discovered several local churches banded together to bring “God’s Not Dead” to Newton — my faith was re-affirmed.

I thought it was story Newton needed to see on th Daily News religion page.

So, the next stage of my journey began on Tuesday, as I visited different churches to find out about “God’s Not Dead.” By the end of the day, I had multiple churches and community members tell me about their own “God’s Not Dead” journeys.

For me, the journey took me back to my high school days when I was able to talk with one of my football coaches, Randy Ervin, about his faith and experiences with the film.

Wednesday, I found myself hopping off the wild ride of faith, heading back to “reality.” I was getting set to round out the day, but found myself in conversation with Daily News Editor Bob Eschliman about column writing and video work. I found myself locking the door, thinking about the conversation and thinking about what I originally wrote in my column before.

It’s an everyday occurrence to have those questions that aren’t impossible to answer, but that everyone has to answer for themselves. I found myself debating the questions, “What is truth?” and “What is love?” neither of which, standing alone, have a definitive answer.

In the end, through the past three days, I have seen my faith truly shaken and then set on fire.

People, whether they’re Christian or not, will have their negative comments filled with energy ready to unload, but I urge you to take the time to think if you could be using your energy toward something productive.

Newton loves its movie theaters, both the Valle Drive-In and Capitol II Theatre. Over the past few years, I have learned a lot about studios and how they decide which theaters will feature their films.

It’s purely economical and based on numbers. The movie studios, like any business, have to make money. If a studio sees one movie doesn’t do so well at a particular theater, it makes it tougher for that theater to get another movie with a similar theme to it.

I know most would say “good,” but what if a movie is set to come out just like “Noah,” but without biblical story tied to it?

It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes of Wednesday that my “God’s Not Dead” journey made sense. It was about coming home and being able to kick back and relax, or knowing when to punch the clock and sit down to enjoy a Marvel-ous movie and remembering to stay until the very end.

The Valle Drive-In will kick off their season and the Capitol II will have a special showing Thursday night of “Captain America: Winter Solider.” Capitol II start time is 9:15 p.m. And the gates at Valle Drive-In opens at 6:30.