Real life and the Movies

  I saw an old acquaintance tonight mopping the floor at Braum's.  It was hours ago, but I still can't get the look in his eyes out of my head.  You could see that he was exhausted and just longing for something more.  He is well known for being the voice of all religious mockery on the MSU campus.  He successfully started a "church" and gained hundreds of followers atheist, christian, catholic and more who all "worshiped" the flying spaghetti monster, and said "Ramen!" after anyone said something they agreed with (get it, the play on pasta and amen).  He's told me that he is honestly on a search for truth.  He has read the entire Bible multiple times and can't believe that a loving God would allow a father to sacrifice his daughter (Judges 11) and several other things throw him off too.  My heart breaks in knowing that the truth is right under his nose and he doesn't/can't get it.  God can get his attention, God can fill his thirst for knowledge, life, and truth...what's it going to take to make it happen?

A perfect example of how we see only what we are looking for and miss so much is the scene in The Bourne Ultimatum that takes place in the train station in London.  A group of guys miss several opportunities to grab Jason Bourne because they are focused on catching a reporter who possibly has links to him.  To quote Rafiki we've got to learn to "look beyond what you see," or as Annie Dillard would say we have to learn to see the "artificial obvious."  God is moving all around us, God is speaking specific truths to us daily in the Bible, but our point of views and our focuses make us miss so much. God, open our eyes...