There are so many benefits to starting the day with God. Never had I considered one of them to be saving me from assault and battery charges. Not until “the incident” at the movie theater had I ever considered such a benefit. The one-year anniversary of “the incident” is fast approaching and you’ll soon discover that I clearly have some more inside work to do. Perhaps it’s because ever since the incident, I see The Movie Lady at the gym, the grocery store, the elementary school. Everywhere, it seems.
(Strike up the dramatic Hollywood soundtrack as background music.) I awoke to a dark, rainy day on this particular student holiday. The day before we’d made plans to meet another mom and her two kids at the theater to take in a new movie – which turned out to be a brilliant plan given the weather. The house was still quiet. Not a creature was stirring, not even the kids. I spent some leisurely time with God in my prayer chair to calibrate myself for the day ahead.
Within a few hours, we arrived at the theater early to meet our friends. The combination of no school, bad weather and a new movie release brought a sea of people to the theater so we decided to go save six seats in the theater before standing in the mile-long popcorn line. Yet another brilliant plan because when we returned with all of our buttery deliciousness, the theater was jam packed. Only single seats remained but near the top we could see our saved seats so up we went.
One problem. Only five seats were saved with our jackets. My seat was occupied by a woman and on the other side of her were two young kids. I politely told her that we had saved six seats and that I’d like to get my seat back. Staring straight ahead she said, “You can’t save seats at the movies.” I tried to reason with her. I tried to talk tough. I tried to guilt her into giving me back my seat – her kids were watching after all. The exchange went on and grew a bit louder and that’s when two nearby women, chimed in with a crescendo “oooooohhhhhhhh” as though certain the juicy argument would soon attract security.
In that instant, I knew it was God who spoke to me. It was not audible but oh, was it crystal clear. He whispered, “Are you for me? Your kids are watching you…along with half the movie theater. Are you going to represent me well or not?” The theater of my mind shot back to the scene of the morning prayer chair and the passage in Joshua 5:13 – “He looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?’” Similar questions flooded over me as the previews ended and the feature film began. Who am I for? Who do I want to represent in this moment? I made my way to a single seat one row down.
The movie played on and I couldn’t have told you one thing about it. I was churning and burning on the inside. One hour into the movie a beautiful opportunity presented itself on a silver platter. The Movie Lady had to leave the theater with one of her children to take him to the bathroom. I looked back and said to my kids, “Hey – here’s my chance!” Every cell of my body wanted to hop the row and sit in my original seat next to The Movie Lady’s daughter.
God used my sweet Lauren to cement me to my lone seat. My daughter practically yelled down the aisle, “Mom – you always say, ‘return evil with good.’” Darn – there goes that option. But I could still glare at The Movie Lady when she returned to the theater. I shot her visual daggers as I tracked every step of her walk back to my original seat…turns out she was petite…I could have taken her.
As the old hymn resounds, “I am prone to wander.” I am so weak in my natural self. And sadly, all too often, I do not choose to back away from the evil one’s traps. I can so quickly make sin my master rather than the ROCK Eternal.
But on this day, He rescued me. I was ROCKed at the movies and it was all because I started my day with Him and invited Him into it. His power can be our power when we spend time with Him. He loves it when we allow Him to pour His SUPER all over our NATURAL. Sit. Stay. Restore. ROCKon.
So this month I don’t have a brand new shiny deeply spiritual theological principle to share with you. Just a simple blockbuster benefit to practicing His Presence: Go to God, not jail.
