|
Listen to this devotional: |
Listen while you read: "Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus"1
(Lyrics) |
Psalm 121 – I will lift up my eyes to the hills — From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore. (NKJV)
When I was a young girl, The Sound of Music had just been released to the theatres, and I was invited to join neighbours on an evening outing to watch it. My friends were immigrants from Austria, and the father, Walter, had been raised in the same region that the movie was filmed. We all sat enthralled with the story, the music, and the scenery, and you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre. The closing scenes were of the Von Trapp family hiking over the mountains seeking freedom from the Nazis. Suddenly the spell was broken as Walter jumped to his feet shouting, "You're going the wrong way!" Obviously, the movie makers preferred that scenery as the backdrop, but it was inaccurate, and my friend, being familiar with the area, realized it. He had become so completely drawn in to the movie that he felt the need to warn the Von Trapps before it was too late.
The inaccuracy of the beautiful film reminds me of our attractive world that is now dominated by deceptions, partial knowledge, inaccuracies, and convenience. It is so easy to be drawn in to secular lives that are wrongly influenced by sins that are made to seem so innocuous, rather than godly lives that are guided by the teachings of Christ as written in the Bible. Just as the movie makers used pretty scenery to make a lovely, but inaccurate, movie, the secular world tries to lure us down the wrong paths by offering enticing lifestyles that don't match up with the life that God wants us to live. We need to guard our behaviour carefully so that we aren't leading pretty lives that are false. We all need a "Walter" to guide us and to call us out when we stray off course. Let's not ignore God when He nudges us back. His directions in our guidebook, the Bible, are clear.
Prayer: Thank You for being our leader in life, Lord. It is so easy to stray onto the wrong path, and we need Your guidance daily. Open our eyes to see and our ears to hear when You give us direction, and then, grant us the courage to move our feet in the way that You want us to go. In Your holy name, we pray. Amen.
Forward this devotional Share on Facebook
About the author:
Mary Ellen Miller <mem1955@sympatico.ca>
Hillsburgh, Ontario, Canada
Send your feedback to the author
Thank you.
Amen, Mary Ellen.
Thank you, Mary Ellen, God bless you.
Thanks, Mary. That story perfectly illustrates your message.
A good word today, Mary Ellen.
Blessings.
Wow, Mary Ellen! That sure brings the Scripture home to me, today! Thanks for a memorable writing.
What an interesting story with an important lesson, Mary Ellen!
Thanks for sharing and God bless!
Thankyou kindly for sharing this. Don’t stop sharing as God leads you my sister and may we stay in Christ and prayer for others.
Hello Mary Ellen,
Just wanted to say I was blessed by your recent story that appeared in PresbyCan, “Going in the Right Direction”!
Thank you, Mary Ellen, for this devotional today. Yes, if we heed the Lord’s word and follow His words in the Bible, we will keep going the right way and enjoy a much better life by not going astray. Blessings for your writing.
I’ll view the movie with different eyes from now on, Mary Ellen. It’s one of my all-time favorites.
Your message is very good. Let’s always seek God’s guidance in all things. The world is becoming a world of misguided people. Sad but true.
Thank you.
Wow Mary Ellen!
What an exciting experience to have sat with a fellow who made the wonderful story come alive.
We have watched several movies and shows filmed downtown Montreal … areas I walked every day for two years while studying at McGill and Presbyterian College.
Blessings.
Hi Mary Ellen
Thanks for your devotion which brought back memories that I had almost forgotten.
During a ski vacation in Vermont in 1994, our family stayed at the Von Trapp Family Lodge, where we met one of the Von Trapps (can not remember her name, but she must be long gone with the Lord, having then been in her 70s. Lovely woman, heavenly spot, great memories of a family trip with my three young boys. Thanks!
Blessings.
Well said, Mary Ellen!
Your message resonated with me on so many levels. I could almost feel the terror in Walter as he was so caught up and living ‘in the moment’ of the film.
Also, these words are sadly, oh so true! “The inaccuracy of the beautiful film reminds me of our attractive world that is now dominated by deceptions, partial knowledge, inaccuracies, and convenience.”
Thanks for the heads up and reminder to pray your prayer.
Blessings to you.
Dear Mary Ellen,
I also remember seeing The Sound of Music when I was young and the enjoyment of that movie. I loved your story of how you got to see it and of Walter’s reaction to the ending – so special a memory.
When you tie it into today’s world and how easily we can be attracted to the wrong things, brings home your point so clearly. The reminder to ask for God’s help and being nudged by Him to do His will and not our own is something I need constantly to do. I am trying once again to read the Bible and I feel God’s nudging when I think I will skip a day. I have a tendency to judge quickly and need to be nudged to remember I don’t know the whole picture.
Mary Ellen, thank you for sharing your memory and how you use it to this day as a reminder of how we can easily be deceived. May you have a blessed day and continue to share.
What a great message, Mary, the Lord gave you to share with us!!! I wonder if any of my grand and great-grandchildren have seen this marvelous film. We took our children and loved it. I would love to see the original on the big screen again. How we all loved and admired Corrie and thank God for her. May the Lord bless and use you greatly.
(California)
Thank you, Mary Ellen, for sharing this encouraging devotional with us.
Blessings.
Hello Marry Ellen,
I remember the movie well. Watched it so many times. I often speak to the same points you bring forth in our modern world and look for something to compare it with to make the point. Thank you for sharing your story and comparison of the von Trapp family with our modern life-style – indeed, much of our lives today are going the wrong way. The question now is how do we get those directionally challenged folks to change paths?
Thank you again and for your pray.
God bless,
(ON)