I wanted to share this personal experience that happened with me a few years ago which holds a wonderful lesson in it. When I was in my freshman year at university in Lebanon I had an exceptional opportunity to reach out to a good person… I had an English class with a pretty charismatic teacher, he addressed us like we were grownups, and I was 17 at the time so I always enjoyed being spoken to as an adult. He always enjoyed hearing our thoughts, but most of the time we weren’t as free to voice our opinions as we liked as many people believed different things. At the time I wasn’t yet keen on making my voice heard, but God knows when I was given an opportunity I’d muster up some courage to share my beliefs and such.
Midterms had started and for this class we were asked to write a comparative essay while choosing one of 3 topics offered. I remember choosing to write a comparative essay on two movies. So I went ahead and thought I’d write a comparison between two silly movies, I figured whatever it’s just an essay. So I chose two similar and non-similar movies, 007 and Johnny English, which is the comedy version of the original 007 movie. So I wrote it all out, thought it was a witty choice, but soon enough realized I missed out on a good opportunity for something special.
Right after we handed in our papers friends of mine came to me and asked what I had written on. I told them and they had also selected movies. But my ear shifted to one of my friends who said what she had written about… at this time was just when Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” came out. People were on a craze about it, it got very popular in Lebanon. Although this was a powerful movie about Christ I had understood that the concept was misleading because it focused only on the physical pain as being the attribute of His death. According to the Desire of Ages Ellen White explains that Jesus was so overwhelmed with the concept of separation from His Father that He could not bear it when His father turned His face from Him because of all the sin on His shoulders. At that point Christ’s life slipped from Him because of the overwhelming fear of such a horrible consequence. It normally would take an individual up to 7 days to die on a cross, Christ died within in 6 hours. The cause of His death was something of much greater significance than physical pain. Ellen White states that the mental anguish of separation from the Father, the horrendousness of sin was so great that He barely felt the physical pain. That thought is so beyond imagination to consider possible, but at the same time makes sense from the speedy death He experienced in giving up His Spirit. The Roman soldiers could not even believe He was already dead as this was uncommon in crucifixion. It was this subject that I could have used, one to express my understanding of this valid issue concerning Christ’s feelings and nature, and as an opportunity to leave my teacher with a beautiful message of how amazing God’s love is. How much He was willing to RISK because of His love for a fallen world.
I was disappointed with my pathetic choice of movies to compare with when if I had thought a little more I would have been able to write such a beautiful comparison between say the “Greatest Story Ever Told” (which focuses less on the physical aspect that killed Him and more on the emotional struggle etc…) and the Passion of Christ. I was upset that other students who weren’t even religious thought of writing a comparison about this movie and I had not. So I went home aggravated with myself… wishing it wasn’t a midterm and wishing I could have done it again. I didn’t think about it much, but I expressed my concern to God about this issue. I then went ahead and thought I’d write an outline for what I would have written. I wrote a nice clear outline of the a comparison between the Passion of the Christ and The Greatest Story ever told focusing on the points of Christ’s sacrifice to have been so phenomenal that the risk of separation had taken His life, and that this is how much Christ really loved us.
I made my way to university the next day to be blown over with surprise at what was waiting. Our English teacher, who usually enters the class with a smile on his face and skip in his step walked slowly in with his head down and a disappointed look on his face. He then said “I’m so sorry to inform you all, I know you worked very hard, but the mid-terms which you submitted for this class which were taken to one of the secretary’s offices has been stolen”! I couldn’t believe my ears! I kind of looked up and said “Wow God you must really want me to write that essay!” I was the only kid there who was so excited to get to do the mid-term again. No one knew who had taken those mid-terms or why, they were just a bunch of essays, why would anyone steal them?? I didn’t think about it much. I recalled my outline I had made and filled out the entire paper with what the Lord impressed me with. I can’t tell you how excited I was. I felt as though God had dropped this opportunity in my hand and I didn’t even deserve it.
When the teacher had corrected the mid-terms he came up to me and looked me in the eye and said “I liked your essay.” We didn’t talk about it; I just looked him back and smiled from ear to ear.
I learned an important lesson from this experience. My little act of writing out an outline of what I would have wrote was an extremely powerful act of faith that I believe caused those mid-terms to “disappear” or be “stolen” as was reported. Sure it was a sad that everyone had to their mid-terms again, but if anything everyone got to improve them, and I got a second chance to justify something that was so dear to me.
Why did I share this with you? To rekindle the child-like faith that we have so easily laid off in exchange for attitudes that accept uncomfortable situations because they “feel” they can’t do anything about it.
Sure YOU can’t, but your FAITH can.
God bless you all.
