Brian Castelli – With His Heart

(Originally published May 2007)

I recently watched the new Drew Barrymore movie, Fever Pitch. I enjoyed the movie, but most impressive to me was the main message delivered by the movie:

Sometimes you sacrifice what you love for the one you love!

Fever Pitch is a sappy romance that brings together two people who were previously unwilling to compromise their goals and desires for anyone. In their own ways, each was immersed in something very important to them with no room for anyone else. By the end of the movie, however, in a scene reminiscent of O. Henry’s classic The Gift of the Magi, both are willing to give up something dear to them for the other’s sake. (Okay. It falls well short of O. Henry’s work, but there might be a hint of it!)

In this day of selfish pursuits, it’s nice to see a movie with a positive message.

( I just wish they could have restrained themselves from adding the strong undercurrent of sexuality!)

If you’d like to read a public-domain copy of The Gift of the Magi, try Project Gutenberg at this location:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/magi10h.htm

Enjoy!

(Originally published May 2007)

I have been solwly working my way through The Pursuit of God, a book written in the 1940’s by A. W. Tozer. Today I came across a very interesting section that I will quote here:

“The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people.”

The point Tozer is trying to make is that unless we believe that God is active in the world around us, speaking to us from his very creation, that the Bible cannot be more than a book of moral principles for us. Tozer goes on to write:

“A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the very nature of God to speak.”

Tozer has hit upon the answer to a problem I routinely run into when talking to people about faith. They don’t want to accept the Bible as God’s word because they don’t perceive God as active in the world around them. And they find it difficult to believe that God, if he exists, would only speak through this one book. The answer, of course, is that God is speaking all the time through the world around us. The Bible is only one of the ways God reveals himself.

I gave a copy of John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart to a friend today. As I considered the gift, I thought back to what I find so compelling about the book. Look around! You will see that God has created mountains to high that men can barely climb them! He’s created oceans so vast and deep that men can’t cross them or descend their depths without complex machines. The jungles and forests are alive with wild creatures. The snow and the wind and the rain beat down upon the earth. Stand in the middle of a thunderstorm and be awestruck! You can’t come to any other conclusion than this: God’s creation is wild, dangerous and uncontrollable! If the creation is wild, it stands to reason that the creator is wild, dangerous, and uncontrollable. (When was the last time *you* could control God?)

Check this out: The Bible says that we were made in God’s image. If God is wild, dangerous and uncontrollable, that means that we share some of those same characteristics. We are wild at heart.

Eldredge rightly points out that this wild nature is not an excuse to be brutes or uncivilized. It is simply an acknowledgment that we were built for more than just sitting in Sunday School. Sunday School is very important, and there is a time and place for it. There is also a time and place for being out in God’s creation and connecting to Him in a way we can’t otherwise. There is also a time and a place for discovering our purpose, for sticking our necks out to take a chance on Jesus.

Wild at Heart is about purpose. We each have a specific battle to fight. Satan is working hard to keep us from finding our missions, from following God on the path for which we were made.

Wild at Heart is about reclaiming our true natures and getting in touch with the purpose for which we were made. Can you imagine a better way to live?