God's Movie Script

This comes directly from Francis Chan's book Crazy Love, written in 2008. This is an excerpt from the second chapter.

Suppose you are an extra in an upcoming movie. You will probably scrutinize that one scene where hundreds of people are milling around, just waiting for that two-fifths of a second where you can see the back of your head. Maybe your mom or your closest friend get excited about that two-fifths of a second with you...maybe. But no one else will realize it's you. Even if you tell them, they won't care.



Let's take it a step further. What if you rent out the theater on opening night and invite all your friends and family to come see the new movie about you? People will say, "You're an idiot! How could you think this movie is about you?"


Many Christians are even more delusional than the person I've been describing. So many of us think and live like the movie of life is all about us.


Now consider the movie of life...

God creates the world. (Were you alive then? Was God talking to you when He proclaimed "It is good" about all He had just made?)

The people rebel against God (who, if you haven't realized it yet, is the main character of this movie), and God floods the earth to rid it of the mess people made of it.


Several generations later, God singles out a ninety-nine-year-old man called Abram and makes him the father of a nation (did you have anything to do with this?).


Later, along comes Joseph and Moses and many other ordinary and inadequate people that the movie is also not about. God is the one who picks them and directs them and works miracles through them.


In the next scene, God sends judges and prophets to His nation because the people can't seem to give Him the one thing He asks of them (obedience).


And then, the climax: The Son of God is born among the people whom God somehow still loves. While in this world, the Son teaches His followers what true love looks like. Then the Son of God dies and is resurrected and goes back up to be with God.


And even though the movie isn't quite finished yet, we know what the last scene holds. It's the scene I already described in chapter 1: the throne room of God. Here every being worships God who sits on the throne, for He alone is worthy to be praised.


From start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us? Our scenes in the movie, our brief lives, fall somewhere between the time Jesus ascends into heaven (Acts) and when we will all worship God on His throne in heaven (Revelation).


We have only our two-fifths-of-a-second long scene to live. I don't know about you, but I want my two-fifths-of-a-second to be about making much of God. First Corinthians 10:21 says, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. That is what each of our two-fifths of a second is about.


--Crazy Love by Francis Chan, pgs. 42-45