A Widening Gap

Happy Monday! I hope all of you had a great weekend - it was wonderful to see some of you this weekend at the Fall Festival or at masses! Don't forget to sign up for DCYC and the Jr. High Youth Rally within the next few weeks! Just get ahold of me to sign up. Also - the Teen Community Bible study is tonight from 6:30-8:30 at the Christian Church. 6:30-7 is dinner, so if you don't want to eat there, just come around 6:55! I know a few of you are planning on coming tonight - so there will be an SJV group this time! Yay!

I had a plan for today's blog, but after receiving an email from a friend - I'm going to push off my initial idea to tomorrow's post. Instead, I would like you all to watch this YouTube video that my friend sent me. This is a skit that was put on at Winterfest in Knoxville, TN. Winterfest is a Christian gathering with speakers, music, dancing, skits, etc - comparable to DCYC, but on a bigger scale.

This video is an interpretive skit that is done to Lifehouse's song, "Everything." Watch the video - and then read on.

This skit shows how we let evil and things of this world take us away from God and how in the end, God is what will save us and bring us true peace and happiness once again. There are five different actors portraying the various things that take us away from God - romantic love, money, drugs, physical beauty, and depression (or you could interpret these actors as other things as well).

In the end, the girl realizes that she doesn't want to live like this and wants to return to God, but these things of this world pull her back and try to beat her down. And that's so true in our own lives, those things that we let get in between God and ourselves do hold us back, and our road back to God is not always easy for us. But, with his help and intervention, we can return to God once again.

I think the most moving part of this video is when the actor playing Jesus steps in between the 'demons' and the girl - you can see how they are still beating on him, still fighting him, and to me - I can see pain in his face. Holding back those demons isn't easy, but he knows he has the power to protect her, and that he will protect her, no matter the pain that it causes him.

Today - consider what may be pulling you away from God and what those 5 actors pulling this girl away represent in your life.

Here are Jesus' words in John 14:1-2: "'Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.'"