Carrying Notes

The Ravishing Mrs. TB and myself watched Invincible last night, the Disney movie based on Vince Papali, the 30 year old who in 1977, with no real experience, tried out for and played for the Philadelphia Eagles. Actually a fairly enjoyable movie - little foul language, no nudity, and the soundtrack alone (mid 70's) is worth listening to.

In part of the movie, Papali (played by Mark Wahlberg) looks at a note that his ex-wife left him when she left the marriage (shown in the beginning of the movie). It says something to the effect of "You're a loser, you'll never make any money, you'll never amount to anything". It is implied that he looks at this list frequently, perhaps every day. It is only after he destroys list after a humiliating loss to the Dallas Cowboys, just before he goes into the next game with the New York Giatns, that he meets with his success.

The point that this spawned for me in the morning as I was driving to work is what lists do I carry around. Most of us, I propose, carry around within us lists that have been given to us by others telling us that we are failure, bad, can't do certain things, etc. These are lists that we willingly carry ourselves, sometimes years after the relationship has been terminated - perhaps the people involved are even dead.

The problem, it seems to me, is that unlike the movie, our lists are more often than not are not something we can hold in our hands - they are ingrained deep within us, perhaps buried beneath most of our daily conscious thought. It may be (in fact, for me it is) that the incident that caused the list, the person who gave it to us, is long forgotten.

But the list remains. And we hand carry them with us every.

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may proved what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Part of that renewal is finding out and tearing up the lists.

Can every one do all things? No. Are some things that people say true? Yes. But we are capable of far more than we think, and people will use words as weapons and cloak them as "constructive criticism". It is our job to sort through these, pull out the truth and apply it where possible, and use our given abilities to glorify God to the best.

And that includes tearing up the list.

So go ahead. How long will you carry yours?