God Is Dead...In the Noah Movie (2014)

I’m sure most of you have heard there’s controversy surrounding the movie, Noah (2014), especially for Christians. Believers want to support Christian and Biblical films. We hope they will be used to encourage, inspire, and illustrate God’s amazing love for mankind. So I did my research before watching Noah. I was hoping it would have some redeeming qualities that could be used to share the gospel. I believe that in order to support or oppose something you have to be informed; so I took myself to the movies. I went in knowing it was a secular film and that it would not be an accurate portrayal of the Noah of the Bible. BUT I was not expecting God to be completely absent from the film. I mean even for a secular film, you’d think God would at least play a minor role in a movie about a Biblical figure. But in this movie God is dead.

Oh, there is mention of a “Creator” but he’s never referred to as God, and for that I am thankful.  Because the “Creator” in this film has no similarity to my God. There is so much that is terrible about this movie that I felt guilty contributing my $8. But in order to give an honest opinion, I had to watch it. If I try to write all the things that are terrible about this movie it will take too long so I am just going to bullet point them for you. Also, this post is not a devotion on the flood or Noah. This is simply my movie review.

• First, the movie should be called “Terminators Build a Boat” but that’s an insult to Terminators who are actually really cool. These terminator guys are called “The Watchers” and they are fallen angels who felt bad when the Creator sent Adam and Eve out of the garden. Oh and by the way, in a flashback to the garden, Adam and Eve look like glowing alien creatures. So anyways, these fallen angels get punished for trying to help Adam and Eve and the Creator turns them into rock creatures. They actually do all the building of the boat. I can’t get myself to call it an ark because it looks like a really bad pile of sticks and tar. My preschoolers could have built a better boat with their wooden blocks. 
• Second, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to know that “fallen angels” are usually the bad guys. Technically, fallen angels are called demons not "Watchers" and real demons dislike humans. The only thing demons are trying to help mankind do is mess up.  But sadly in this movie, the rock guys are the only ones who bow down to the “Creator” and who ask for forgiveness. But Jesus did say that if the disciples remained silent the stones would cry out and give Him praise (Luke 19:40). So at least the movie got that right.
• Third, you’d think they’d at least get the animals right. The animals are shown crowding into the boat. I mean why would you need a zillion snakes and a zillion birds? Come on, even my preschoolers know there was only two of each kind of animal (a mommy and a daddy). Oh and just so that the movie could push the evolution agenda, all the animals look like the missing link. And because Noah over-crowed the boat with a bunch of unnecessary missing links, there’s a magic potion to put them all to sleep.    
• Fourth, there is absolutely no prayer in the movie. Noah never prays to the “Creator”. You’d think if you were instructed to build an ark you’d be having some meaningful and in depth conversations with God. Noah’s wife never prays when Noah goes crazy and starts thinking of himself as a god, judging who gets to live and who gets to die. Maybe the Noah in this movie goes a little crazy because he never prays. Just a thought.
• Oh and because every good movie must have a Yoda character, Anthony Hopkins gets the Yoda role (Bummer because I love Anthony Hopkins.) I actually feel bad comparing this grandfather to Yoda because Yoda is pretty cool. But anyways, this old guy gets all the credit for spouting off wisdom and for healing a young girl. When actually all this old guy does is give Noah some hallucinating drugged up tea and is only interested in getting his hands on some berries to eat. I know I’m not making any sense here but now you know my pain while watching this movie.
• Lastly, Noah is just portrayed as a wacko. He’s not portrayed as a good man. When his own son says to him, “I thought you were chosen because you were good.” Noah says, “No, I was chosen because I'd get the job done.” Yeah I know, sounds more like Rambo than Noah. But, then again, that’s an insult to Rambo who is also pretty cool. What really bugged me is the end of the movie. Noah makes statements like he’s God while putting on a creepy snakeskin armband. Now, we all know our Bible stories well enough to know that the “snake” usually represents the Devil. Coincidence? I think not.

There is so much more that I could write but it actually saddens me to write more. Let me tell you what I think are the underlining points this movie is trying to make:

1. There is no loving God. Just this unfeeling, cruel “Creator” who doesn't speak or care for his people
2. The only things “innocent” and worth saving are the planet and the animals. Humans are disposable and harm the environment and should therefore be eliminated. The movie even says that the Creator’s miracles are for the animals not people.
3. And of course make sure to never mention God’s name because that may actually offend someone.

In conclusion, I just want to let you know that my God's NOT dead and here is what He says about His servant Noah in the Bible (Genesis 6-8)

1. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations.
2. Noah walked with God.
3. God gave Noah specific instructions on how to build the ark. And let me tell you, there is no mention of rock guys and I can pretty much guarantee if God designed it, it did not look like a pile of sticks.
4. God made a covenant with Noah that He would protect him and his family.
5. Noah did exactly as God commanded and God said to Noah, “I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.”
6. God kept Noah and his family safe and when the flood waters receded, Noah built an altar to God and praised Him.

Now if you have an extra $8 to spend, I recommend the movie, God’s Not Dead. That movie encourages, inspires, and reminds us how much God loves us. God wants to walk and talk with us like He did Noah. God’s intention is that we are all saved and spend eternity with Him in Heaven. Jesus is our Ark. He’s our safe passage from this world that is passing away to God’s perfect love.

 John 11:25-26 (MSG)

Jesus said, "You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”

So, I'm going to watch my Evan Almighty DVD because that is an awesome, feel good movie and Steve Carell rocked it (no pun intended) as a modern day Noah. You see, I don't need or expect perfect theology in a movie because it's not the Bible but if you are going to make a movie about a Biblical figure at least don't insult them.

Love,

Yolanda

Please watch this great teaching video on Noah by Joseph Prince.

  

First Day of Spring - Poem

It’s Spring!

It’s Spring!

Let our hearts sing

Praise and worship

To our Mighty King

He is worthy of our praise

He deserves all the glory

For creation awakes

And tells His love story

I have loved you

With an everlasting love

Let the warmth of My Spirit

Penetrate your soul

Let winter blues melt away

Let My Love have its way

Raise your face to My Son

Old things are done

Let My Spirit of Spring

Bring you every good thing

Ó 2014 Yolanda Villafana

Isaiah 35:1-2 (MSG)

Wilderness and desert will sing joyously,  the badlands will celebrate and flower—Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom,  a symphony of song and color.  Mountain glories of Lebanon—a gift.   Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon—gifts.  God’s resplendent glory, fully on display. God awesome, God majestic.

Let It Go

The title of this devotion is “Let It Go” because that’s the lesson God has been teaching me recently.  “Let what go” you ask?  EVERYTHING!

My desire to control everything

My desire to know everything

My desire to fix everything

My desire to add my 2 cents….I’m having difficulty with this one

My desire for worldly stuff

My selfishness

My pride

My fear

My doubts

God is calling me to maturity in Him.  It’s uncomfortable. It’s humbling. And it is TOTALLY AWESOME!

When I was a new Christian, I did a study on capturing negative thoughts. The premise is to realize that we are human so unfortunately we are going have negative thoughts but the trick is learning to:

1. Capture the thought
2. Pray about it
3. Then let it go

Only I could never seem to get past Step 1.  I would capture the thought and then I would mull it over. Analyze it to death. Sleep on it. Talk to anyone and everyone about it. And then I would bury it deep down inside my heart where it would fester.  Suddenly someone would scratch the surface of my wounded heart and the ugliness would come oozing out. Most of the time, my negative thoughts were justified. I’d had been hurt, insulted, wronged, or some act of injustice had been committed against me. Usually people who hurt us walk away without knowing they have caused any damage. Sometimes it is us who walk away without knowing that we have just left a bloody victim in our wake. 

What God has been revealing to me is that the reason He wants me to let go of the negative thoughts is because they hurt me. The literally freeze my heart, making me incapable of feeling God’s unconditional love and worse incapable of sharing it. But beyond the damage to our hearts, the more dangerous consequence is the damage negativity does to our spirits.  You see God can’t send me out if I won’t leave the Pity Party; where I’m weighed down with bitterness, anger, jealousy, selfishness, and worldly pursuits. These negative thoughts become shackles of bondage and God desires to set me free.

2 Corinthians 3:17 (AMP)Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom).

Recently, God has provided opportunities to teach me about the blessing of “letting go”:

Most of you know I can’t cook. Recently I made some nachos for my family.  Even I can open a can of beans, pour them over tortilla chips, and microwave cheese.  Well about an hour after we went to bed, my hubby woke up with a tummy ache. Immediately, he started accusing me of giving him food poisoning.  At first I’m upset because it felt like a personal attack. No one else was sick so I’m thinking it was the hot dogs he insisted on adding to his nachos. Who puts hot dogs on nachos? So as I’m laying in bed listening to him moan and groan in the bathroom, I allow the hurt to seep into my heart and I start to blame myself. Thinking, “I wish I was a better cook. Maybe I did something that caused his stomach pains.”

My typical reaction is to turn the hurt into anger. I’ll stew and think, “I hope you’re up all night You Big Meanie!” You know what God put on my heart to do? Pray for my husband. I actually reached out my arm in his direction and silently prayed that the Lord would heal his stomach. That he would not have any further issues and that he would have a good nights sleep. And guess what? God honored my prayers. He fell asleep and was completely recovered by morning. He even nicely apologized.  But even though the apology was welcome, I didn't need it. My heart was right with God so my Spirit was not weighed down with all the negativity. My spirit was inline with God’s Spirit. I’m spiritually growing up. Yay! FINALLY!

The second lesson happened recently when someone hurt my feelings. My initial reaction was totally in the flesh. I was hurt, angry, and I wanted that apology. But there again I captured those negative thoughts and went straight to prayer. And because God still has A LOT of work left to do in my maturing process, my prayers started out pointing fingers and wanting God to change the other person’s heart. Well, he ended up opening my eyes to the flaws in my own heart and gently and lovingly pointed the fingers inwards. I began to ask The Lord to forgive me and to fill me with His Holy Spirit’s grace and love.  I wanted God to open my eyes to what was happening in the other person’s life so that I could react in compassion. (For that story, read "How Many Heartbreaks Will I Leave Behind".)

Sometimes we think that when we do the right thing, God is going to work in the people around us. That He will force an apology or that He’ll allow our desire for justice to prevail. But what I am realizing is that when we release our pain to God, He turns it into blessings. When we let go and let God handle the outcome, people around see God’s Spirit in us and they are drawn to Him. For example, the day my feelings were hurt I went home and used writing therapy to work through my conflicting emotions. After I posted my life lesson on my blog, I started receiving emails thanking me for posting it. They told me that they needed the message and it resonated with their heart and spirits. You see if I would've held on to the negativity, God could not have used me. And worse, I would have missed the blessing that comes when God uses our suffering for His glory and purposes.

I want to share with you some council that was given to me when I broke out with Shingles last year.  When the doctor asked me if I was under a lot of stress my first reaction was, “Nope not me”.  Then I realized that I had been burying emotional hurt and bitterness. When negative feelings would rise up, I would use all of my will power to push them back down instead of turning my problems over to God. I was trying to handle it in my own strength, which ended up giving me a very ugly, painful rash.

Here is what a ministry friend instructed me to do AND if, while I have been sharing this devotion, God has brought to mind a painful memory, a harsh word, or an injustice I want you to:

1. Shake it off. Literally, right now I want you to shake your shoulders and imagine shaking off the shackles of negativity. (1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22)
2. Exhale the negative feelings. Speaking out loud so that you are speaking in the authority of Jesus Christ and say, “God, I am exhaling my anger, my bitterness, my stress in Jesus Name I am giving it over to You to handle. (Psalm 37:8, Psalm 73:21-24)
3. Inhale the Holy Spirit’s Love and Power. Speaking out loud again, “God I am breathing in a renewing of Your Holy Spirit. Fill me with YOUR love, mercy, grace, and power in Jesus name. (Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 3:17). We all received the Holy Spirit when we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. But with this breathing exercise, not only are we relaxing our bodies, we also reminding our spirits that God is in control of our lives. We take the focus off our problems and ourselves and put the focus back on God who is able and willing to resolve them.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 as many times as needed… all day long if necessary. To be completely honest, I do this everyday. Yesterday during chapel, my coworkers saw me staring off into space with my hands lifted in the air...I was mentally doing step 3. Like I said, do this whenever you feel the need for a touch from God's Holy Spirit.  

Feeling better?  I hope so because I want to conclude by giving us a charge, battle plan, a Godly mission. You see the Church Age is winding down. Can you feel it?  A new Pew Study* has revealed that Christianity is the number one religion being persecuted worldwide, with the exception of the Americas. But persecution is coming to America too. Our religious freedoms are being threatened daily because we are viewed by the world as intolerant, ignorant, and hateful. Jesus warned us that the world would hate us for His name’s sake (Matthew 10:22) That’s why Jesus told us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth but store up for yourselves eternal treasures in Heaven because where we store our treasure is where our heart is”. (Matthew 6:19-21). Jesus warns us not to be like Lot’s wife who instead of being led to God’s salvation and protection, she clung to the things of this world and literally turned to stone (Luke 17:32-33).  God knows it will be harder for us to let things go if we put down roots too deeply into this temporary world. I think Jesus’ exhortation in the Book of Revelation is for the church of America today, “You have walked away from your first love. Why? What’s going on with you? Look how far you have fallen. Turn back. Recover your dear early love. No time to waste.” Revelation 2:4-5 (MSG)   

When praying over this devotion, an image came to my mind. I pictured us as beautiful and colorful hot air balloons except that instead of soaring in the sky we were staked down to the earth with ropes. I feel like God wants me to tell you that He loves you. He created each of us differently for His pleasure (Rev 4:11) and He has an amazing plan for your life (Jeremiah 29:11). You've been given a unique and exciting flight plan but in order to fly you need to let stuff go.  He is getting ready to ignite a fire in your soul. He is going to breath His Holy Spirit fire into your hearts and He wants to raise you up with Jesus Christ.  But you have to cut the ropes to this world that are holding you down. He wants you to “let it go”. Let go of the past, let go worrying about the future, let go of disappointment, let go of hurt feelings, let go of pride, let go of the self-criticism, let go of your fear and doubts. God wants us to hand it all over to Him so that He can set us free to soar with Him in the Heavens. He wants for us to be a beautiful display of His Love and Hope to those that are hurting and lost so that when they look up in despair and see us they say, “I want to go where they’re going.”  

I read an awesome scripture recently:

Romans 2:4 from The Message:

God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for a radical life-change!

So my prayer for all of us is:

Ephesians 3:16-19 (CEV)
God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that His Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in His love. I pray that you and all of God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.

Love,

Yolanda

This devotion is dedicated to my coworkers and was inspired by the song "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen movie.

*CNS News: Pew Study