The Alchemist

Following is a letter my wife wrote to a friend. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie "Bruce Almighty", the character of God, as played by Morgan Freeman, had endued the character, Bruce (Jim Carrey) with his powers to answer prayer. Bruce had been complaining that God (at the very least) was cruel, ignorant or indifferent, but God showed him differently:

Richard and I were talking this morning about the movie "Bruce Almighty". One line in particular spoke to us, so I looked it up on the Internet. Prior to Morgan Freeman (God) saying the line, God had allowed Bruce to give people 'yes' answers to their prayers (letting people win the lottery, etc.). However, Bruce found out that just by giving people what THEY thought was best for them, it ended up tragically in case after case.

Bruce was about to discover God doesn't answer our prayers the way we want. He has a purpose in allowing things to happen the way they do:

God: Triumph is born out of struggle. Faith is the alchemist. If you want to paint pictures like this, you have to use some dark colours.

***

I LOVE that line! I looked up the word 'alchemy' and here's the definition:
2 : a power or process of transforming something common into something special
Isn't that cool?

So then - we ended up watching the DVD just for scenes that had been cut from the movie. One scene depicted a chubby young boy in PE class being ridiculed by the 'jocks' as he attempted to climb the ropes. One of the kids said something like, "Oh, yeah. This oughta be good - Filbert's gonna try to climb the rope! Maybe if there was a hot dog on top he could do it!" and they all laughed. Filbert prayed, "God help me!" and Bruce (acting as God) answered his prayer by giving Filbert incredible strength. He all of a sudden found himself with the ability to race up the rope like lightning, much to the admiration of his peers. The boy whispered, "Thank you, God!"

But...when God showed Bruce the ramifications of his intervention in Filbert's life, Bruce was amazed at how Filbert's personality had changed. In one scene, Filbert is beating up another kid in the school yard, while the same 'jocks' who had previously ridiculed him cheered him on. Bruce said, "Why, that's Filbert! What's gotten into him?" This is how God replied:

God: Oh, yes... Filbert. Brilliant young man. He was going to be a great poet. The soul of his work would have been built around his childhood pain. Now he's headed for a career as a professional wrestler. He'll eventually test positive for steroid use and end up managing a muffin shop.
Bruce: That's a disappointment.
God: He got what he prayed for.
God: Since when do people have a clue what they want?

So, this is what came to me:

As Richard said, Bruce had been endued with power, but did not have God's wisdom.

So, all the above made me think of our children in particular. Who's to say that the struggles they're experiencing right now is not EXACTLY what God will use in their future to birth a revelation of who He is? And even though we are appalled at what SEEMS to be, and we question God's methods and if He even cares about our kids...our Heaven Father is saying, "Well? What do you thnk? I'm the one painting this picture. Will you allow me to paint it as I see fit? Will you trust me that I know what colours to use? No matter how bad it looks, no matter how seemingly awful it may get from your human perspective, will you believe Me that I am in total control?"

"Triumph is born out of struggle. Faith is the alchemist".

Yahoo! We get to struggle!!! But we also get to triumph!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rich