Film Friday The film The Outrun tells the story of Rona, a young woman from Orkney who has become an alcoholic. Her mother is a Christian, and she prays for her daughter. And though Rona constantly kicks against her mother’s faith, as she struggles though the terrible ups and downs of her life, it’s clear that her mother never gives up on her, faithfully helping her whenever she can. Jesus tells two stories of perseverance, one in Luke 18 about a woman who is widowed and alone, the other in Luke 11 about a man who risks shame because friends have come to visit and he cannot feed them. Both stories encourage keeping going, though life can be full of difficulties. And both refer to praying.
So many of the heroes of the Bible had to keep pressing on in lives that were not easy – Ruth and Naomi, Queen Esther, Mary and Joseph, and of course Jesus himself, who faced conflict every day of his ministry.
I saw a caption the other day which said something like this – our greatest challenge can be the temptation to give up. Keep knocking, keep asking, keep searching… Jesus said in Luke 11. And I guess he said that because he knew we needed to hear that, because the road of life is often uphill. (Easy to write this here, but we need so much help from God to do this.) Sometimes our praying leads to more praying, rather than answers, sometimes our calling out to God leads to more calling out. ‘I waited patiently for Lord, he lifted me out of a miry pit,’ said the writer of Psalm 40. But then the writer goes on to pray, ‘Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me. My only hope is in your unfailing love and faithfulness.’ Clearly knowing that our troubles go on. And we come back again and again knowing how much we need God and his help.
At one point in the film, when Rona talks to another recovering alcoholic she asks if it gets any easier. ‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘but it never gets easy. Just less hard.’ We all of us have our struggles in life, Jesus was honest and said in this life we would have trouble, this world is broken and we are part of that, but Jesus also invited us to bring our burdens to him, and so we can keep on bringing our brokenness and longings to Jesus, who absolutely understands.
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