In 1999, I went to see the movie The Sixth Sense. It was the big breakout movie for the new director M. Night Shyamalan. Unfortunately it was one of the last good movies he made. (Unbreakable was the other. Believe me when I say it has been all downhill since then.) The Sixth Sense was about a young boy who spoke to the spirits of people that didn’t know they were dead. After a few terrifying events, he starts meeting with a child psychologist, played by Bruce Willis.
The movie was a huge hit and there was a huge buzz about the movie and this big ‘twist’ that happens during the movie. After a few weeks of constant buzz I make my way to Reston Multiplex, and about halfway through this movie, after my box of Milk Duds and the large vat of popcorn, and I start thinking about what this ‘twist’ could be. So I start running all of these scenarios through my head, and all of the sudden it hits me… The child psychologist is dead and doesn’t know it. I apologize if this ruined the ending for you, but it’s been 12 years so perhaps this could be the sign that you need to get out more. (On a separate but related note, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father.)
Back to the movie theater… So there I was now halfway through this movie and I am now viewing this movie in a completely different way than I had watched the first half. I saw things as they were, not as the director wanted me to believe they were. Think about it: the buzz around this movie was this huge twist. The director was intentionally allowing the viewers to believe something that wasn’t true, and for the first half of the movie I just went along with it. It wasn’t until I actually questioned what I believed about the movie, that I started to believe something else. When my belief changed, so did the way I viewed the movie.
I bring all this up because when thinking about my experience in that theater, I realize that for the first half I had just accepted, without question, what the director wanted me to believe. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I started questioning what the director wanted me to believe that I actually came to believe something completely different. At that point, I was finally able to see what was actually happening.
What if that were true outside of our local multiplex as well? If it is, what importance would that put on what we believe? The good news is, if what we believe is that important, I have to believe God might have weighed in on the topic.
I believe we will discuss this on Wednesday.
Invest and Invite,
D.R.
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