Facing the Giants

Far too many people have already weighed in on this little movie that could. I’d like to simply say a couple of things about it now that I’ve watched it with my family.

For the first hour or so my wife and I kept looking at each other as if to say, “aren’t we glad this was a borrowed copy and we didn’t buy or rent this?”

But for me (and I’m not sure of the turning point for my wife) a change happened at the scene where the struggling coach encourages, motivates (pick your favorite word here) one of his players as he tries to carry another player on his back the length of the football field.

Somehow that scene seemed real to me. It had emotion. It wasn’t flat or pat.

After that I was in.

Is this a great movie? No. But is it worthwhile? Yes.

Christians may find the theology a little too contrived. Without giving too much away, everything works out in the end. A sort of Romans 8:28 theology. And I have to admit for some people things do sometimes work out that way.

A couple of weeks ago a family at our church lost a mother and wife to cancer. I’ll spare you the details but I’d venture to say that even though their faith is strong (still), they could tell you from first-hand experience, that things (on the surface) don’t always turn out good or happy or wonderful. A man lost his wife, three boys lost their mother. Hard stuff.

I don’t want to get my theology from country music but I like the words in the Martina McBride song “Anyway.” They go something like this: “God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good. When I pray, sometimes things don’t work out like they should, but I do it anyway.”

That line gets me every time.

Perhaps it is my own shortcomings that keep me from living the life as portrayed and experienced in Facing the Giants. But for reasons unknown to me (and many others), our lives here on earth are messy and to paraphrase the book title of a couple of decades ago, “Bad stuff happens to good people.” I think how we deal with that bad stuff is what separates us from everybody else.