Film Friday The film Father Stu is about an amateur boxer Stuart Long, who is a tough talking, hard drinking guy who falls in love with a young woman Carmen, and then discovers that she goes to the local church. So he decides to go along to the local church too, and he seems to change a little bit… but not really! He’s just going along because he wants to see Carmen. He wouldn’t be the first person to go along to church because they were falling in love with someone! But then Stewart has an accident. And during the accident he has a vision and this begins to change everything for him.
There’s a verse in Proverbs chapter 20 verse 30, the Good News version puts it like this – ‘Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways.’ That was true here for Stuart Long, his life began to change when crisis struck. And perhaps we can probably relate to that. When things fall apart we often realise we’re not as strong as we thought we were, and we realise how much we need God. When Simon Peter first met Jesus in Luke chapter 5, his instant reaction was to say to Jesus – ‘Go away from me because I’m not a good man, I’m not going to make good disciple material at all.’ I’m sure Jesus was aware that this would create a moment of crisis in Peter’s life, but Jesus also knew that this encounter would begin to change Peter. It opened his eyes to who he was, and was the beginning of Peter discovering who Jesus was. We all have these moments when our lives change a little bit, often leading to our eyes being opened a little more. When I lost my way for a while and my life fell apart that turned into an experience where I discovered so much more about God, and about how much he cared about me. And if you’re going through difficult times I pray that you may know that God is with you, close by you and on your side today.
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