playing opossum
While I was in Texas, me and one of my cousins went to see "Over the Hedge". It is this little animated movie about these animals that are stealing all this food from humans who live, go figure, 'over the hedge'. Of course, if you know me, everything I see can be easily applied to spiritual things, and this movie was by no means and exception.
The turtle in the movie, I forget his name, but he was sort of the head honcho of the bunch. All of his little family looked up to him, they were all different animals .. opossums, skunk, a really hyper squirrel. Well this turtle is a take charge kind of guy who makes sure everything gets done. He plays by the rules and when something doesn't seem right his "tail tingles". He doesn't do it if his tail tingles. Well, the raccoon gets himself into some trouble with a bear, stumbles upon this sweet family of forest creatures and takes complete advantage of them. Everyone of the animals like him and want to steal from the humans, but the turtle doesn't feel right about it... his tail is tingling. He decides he is going to go by the book and work for his food while his family and the raccoon do nothing but take from others.
Now, as Christians we have an influence over our brothers and sisters in Christ. We each have a circle of influence. People look up to us and look to us for spiritual guidance and are watching us to see if we make good decisions. It is quite a difficult position and you don't know how much responsibility it is or how hard it is until you are faced with an option.
----- it all applied and was quite obvious to me when I watched the movie... maybe not so much now. But here is my favorite!
There is a daddy opossum and his little girl opossum... the little girl is almost ashamed of her dad because he "plays opossum". Playing opossum is playing dead, it is their way of protecting themself from danger. The dad says something along the lines of "we die so that we can live".. of course he meant that they play dead so they don't have to really die... but that is us. We die so that we can live. The daughter saw this as a sign of weakness, but the dad new it was a strength and it was beneficial. I liked it... the movie was somewhat cheesy.. but I lliked it.