One of my favorite films is Signs with Mel Gibson. It’s one of the
few movies that promotes an intelligent kind of faith in a God who
frequently has a way of bringing things together when we least expect
it. The movie also features a very young Abigail Breslin, who has
quickly shown herself to be an extremely talented up-and-coming
actress. Her character in the movie has a problem with germs (a problem
my wife shares, incidentally) and she can’t seem to take more than one
sip of water before putting it down and proclaiming it “contaminated”.
She leaves a trail of full cups of water all over the house and her dad
asks what’s wrong with the water and she finds different things for
each cup, “It has a hair…Morgan took a sip and it has his amoebas in
it…it has dust in it,” and so on. I began thinking about this movie
the other day as I sat on the parking shuttle at UCCS, on my way back
to my car. A girl sat next to me with headphones blaring rock music. I
don’t know the band she was listening to or the words they were saying
but I could hear and feel the rage pouring out of the music. It got me
thinking about the world we’re surrounded by and how deeply it can
affect us, and how oblivious most of us are to it. I see teens in our
youth group and other people around me pull out their media IV and
begin to explore real freedom and life and then I see just as quickly
how the iron curtain of fog falls back down as they pick up the IV and
stick it right back in their veins.
The problem is, the enemy is fully aware of the effect media has on
us. And he’s using it to his advantage every way he can. What happens
when most of the Christian population eats, drinks, sleeps, and soaks
up everything the world throws at them, while the enemy wages an
unceasing war against us? How can we expect to stand, much less to
overcome? We leave the TV’s on in our homes, we listen to music with no
care for the content or messages contained, we laugh at movies that
tell us pride, promiscuity, and rebellion are funny. And we slowly
poison our souls with lust, anger, bitterness, rejection and everything
the world without Christ is trapped by.
Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever
is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think
about such things.”
So what’s the alternative? Listen only to Christian radio stations
or only watch Christian movies? That would probably drive me nuts. I
don’t think Paul’s statement in Philippians means we can never see an R
rated movie or listen to a secular station. But I do think we need to
sort through what we’re putting into our systems. Just because it’s on
the top 10 list, in fact, just because it’s really well done, doesn’t
mean that it’s worth watching or listening to.
In Signs, the little girls odd reluctance to finish a glass of water
winds up being a blessing in disguise, and actually saves the family
from a dire situation. She looked weird because she wouldn’t drink what
everyone else was drinking, but her caution turned to their benefit.
It’s time we woke up a little bit and took responsibility for what we
watch, laugh at, and listen to. There’s something in the water. It’s
contaminated. And I’m done drinking.
