Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
What's in your basement?
***Here's a blog I wrote awhile ago that bears repeating about age and pursuing goals.
What's in your basement?
Current mood: 
bored
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
I recently saw Rocky Balboa with my buddy Luke. He's quite the Rocky fan and I'm certainly a fan also. Besides this new Rocky movie, I hear he's doing a new Rambo movie too. We'll see how that goes. This new Rocky movie is pretty decent though. Sylvester Stallone had a big hand in the creative process- writing, directing, and starring in the underdog role again.
Stallone has become quite public with his beliefs too. He did a lot of promos and interviews for Christian media. He keeps saying that Rocky Balboa is not a boxing movie. The strong themes, including perseverance and fighting the good fight, are what the movie is really about. There is quite a lot of Christian marketing material for the film too. In fact, the same company that did Chronicles of Narnia. It's funny because they keep making the point that it's not a Christian movie- which I could write a blog about in itself, but I won't.
There's a point in the movie where everybody is questioning why Rocky wants to come back and do a boxing match. Among the reasons, Rocky says there is something more in him, "in his basement," that he needs to get out. "What? You haven't peaked yet?" asks Paulie. At first, it sounds a bit weird and maybe childish. But let's compare him to a biblical character named Caleb:
10 "Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said." (Joshua 14:10-12)
Mark Gorman, a speaker I like very much, talked about this passage once. Basically, he opened up saying, "Here's a guy, 85, willing to pick a fight." Despite the differences, I see two men here with very similar hearts- Rocky and Caleb. Rocky, in his late 50s (pushing 60 shortly) wanting to get back into the ring. Caleb, not weary from battles and just plain wandering around in the desert for 40 years, at age 80, ready for battle.
I always tell people that age is a mental state of being. And that I would not tell people I feel old until I'm atleast 80. Well now with Caleb in the picture it looks like I have to wait until I'm atleast 85. When my friends tell me they are getting old I just laugh at them because it's ridiculous! 45 years since he surveyed the land, Caleb claims he is still as strong and ready to fight for it.
So what's in your basement? The day you quit battling for something, you're dead. So what should you fight for? Find what you are passionate about. Find wherever God wants you to serve and whatever God wants you to fight for. Because when you stop fighting, you might as well "lie down and pick out what flowers you want," as Mark Gorman says. Don't settle for mediocrity or status quo. Learn who you are, what you are called to do, and fight for it.
blessings
***Reading through this again, I clearly needed to hear that last paragraph again. Please pray for my heart and actions to change at work and the rest of my life.
