Good Friday Blindsided

I’m not quite sure where I am writing this from – somewhere over the pacific I guess. I was fully expecting to skip Good Friday this year – and with quite a valid reason. I am flying on a business trip to Australia. I took off from LAX on Thursday night and am due to land in Melbourne on Saturday morning. If I ever had a good excuse to not think about the crucifixion this would be the year. They say that Christ moves in mysterious ways, today I think he has a seat on QF94. On long flights I like to catch up on movies that I have missed. When Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for best actress I was horrified. Her acceptance speech seemed wrong, why should she win? She’s just a blond bombshell, Meryl Streep was much better in Julia and Julia. Now, I sit here watching the Blind Side and I realize that I was wrong. Bullock’s performance made me cry, the story made me think about my own values, it also made me ashamed that I had judged before seeing the film. The more I thought about how quick I was to form an opinion without all the facts the more I became away that this Good Friday I need to move out of my comfort zone and start doing something with my faith.

For me, I feel called to help to support Dorcas House in whatever way I can. Recently, Antonio and I have been on a couple of visits to Dorcas House. But now as I sit here I feel that Christ is calling for ME to do more. There is no resurrection without the crucifixion. I can’t conveniently get on a plane and skip the cross. Christ died for ME. And he calls ME to action. In the film, the Blind Side, Sandra Bullock’s character does something beyond living her life to the level expected of her by society. She moves her life out of her comfort zone.

Christ may have been crucified on a cross at Calvery but today His cross is calling ME to move out of my comfort zone for Dorcas House. I am not quite sure what that place outside of my comfort zone is. But I know that I MUST move into that zone.

Even when I try to wipe out Good Friday, even when I try and loose myself in a Holywood blockbuster. Christ chooses to take a seat next to me. I pray that the Christ will be with me, and give me the strength, conviction and faith to follow through on Christ’s call from the cross to me.

How foolish and small minded of me to think that a 747 would make for an easy Lenten season for me and who would of guessed that Christ was a frequent flyer. Maybe heaven’s advertising department is considering the phrase “we know why you fly”.

-Richard Lee