It’s now March, which means that college basketball is entering that most wonderful time on the sports calendar, the NCAA Tournament.  Conference tourneys wrap up this weekend (though Louisville apparently decided to wrap up early), and Sunday night fans everywhere will find out if their team is one of the 65 invited to this year’s big dance.  That means that the annual rite of filling out a bracket and trying to pick the tournament winners is about to get underway, and my blog-buddy Darius over at Echoes in Eternity is combining that ritual with a chance to land some books.  Entries are $5 per person, and the most accurate prognosticator will win at least four books, with the possibility of more as more entries come in.   Head over to his site to check out the details, and let’s see if you can out-pick me!

“Quite a few years ago our younger son Andrew and I went to investigate a fire that someone had started in a park near where we live.  We were feeling very responsible and decided that we should try and put the fire out, but it kept moving towards us and the smoke was getting into our eyes.  I lifted Andrew over the flames into the burnt area and jumped over beside him.  Once we were on the burnt ground on the other side of the flames, we were able to put the fire out without any trouble at all.  We were safe there because once the fire has burned the ground, it cannot burn it again.

Because Jesus has already endured the judgement of God, anyone who puts their trust in Jesus is standing on the burnt ground of Calvary.  The judgement has passed; there is no fear of judgment anymore.  That’s why Christians can say, ‘No condemnation now I dread,’ because the work has been done by Jesus on the cross.  Those who trust in Christ can never come into condemnation again.”

- Liam Goligher, The Jesus Gospel

A couple weeks ago, Zach Nielsen posted a couple YouTube gems from the old Soviet bloc.  After cracking up at “Jozin z Bazin” for the twentieth time, I had to track down the lyrics.  They did not disappoint, so here’s a version with English subtitles.  Priceless.

Last night, Heather and I finished up season 1 of the 2004 reimagining of Battlestar Galactica.  The series – which aired on SyFy and just ended its run last year – follows the last band of humans traveling through space after their colonies and civilization were nearly wiped out by a race of machines called the Cylons.  The series has been great so far, with an interesting cast of characters, a well-crafted visual style, and a premise that’s far more interesting than it first sounds (the robots-destroying-humanity thing is a little more played out than it was when the original show aired in the 80’s, but they somehow make it feel fresh here).  One of the ways I like to identify really good sci-fi is by seeing whether or not my wife likes it.  She usually doesn’t care for the genre, so when she really enjoys it (a la Firefly), you know it’s good.  She’s been just as hooked as I have, and the two of us have spent many late nights recently concluding a great episode with an exchange of the phrase, “One more?”  If you’re looking for a TV show to check out, let me suggest tracking this one down on DVD and watching the three-hour miniseries that serves as the show’s premiere.   I think you’ll find yourself coming back for more.

We had a very interesting discussion at our community group last night about the subject of God’s will and opposition.  Often in Christian circles, you’ll hear people throw around the terminology of “open” and “closed” doors.  When everything seems to fall into place, we take that as an “open door” and decide that it must be God’s will.  When we meet resistance at every turn, we call it a “closed door,”  and decide that God must not want us to pursue whatever it is.  I’ve used that language myself countless times in the past, and the idea behind it isn’t necessarily always wrong.  However, we discussed the fact that very often when we are following God, resistance and opposition will come in many ways.  Rather than meaning something is a “closed door,” Scripture actually points out that the fact that we’re meeting resistance often indicates that we’re actually on the right track.

Yet, how do you know when to work through opposition and when God may be leading you in a different direction?  If we were to get five years into our church plant and had a weekly attendance of five people, we’d likely conclude that it might be time to rethink the whole thing, and probably for good reason.  However, we’ve all heard the stories about missionaries that headed overseas and went years before their first convert only to see a great harvest down the line.  So how do we know when God’s telling us to stop and when he’s telling us to fight harder?

We had some great discussions, mostly centering on viewing the nature of the difficulty and our response to it.  Is this difficult endeavor driving me to sin or causing me to fall short of the requirements in 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1 – including not leading my family well?  If so, then that’s a sign that it’s time to back off ministerially and get your own house in order.  We also discussed the fact that God gives us wisdom in each circumstance to discern how we can best honor him.  Sometimes, that’s by changing directions ministerially.  Other times, it’s by charging forward in the midst of difficulty.  One thing’s for certain, though – God is continuing to teach me more and more about what it means to seek his will.  Sometimes, the path of obedience is shown by God opening a door.  But sometimes, it’s shown by God slamming a really big, tough door in our faces – and then handing us a sledgehammer.

“Be willing to suffer, but don’t feel guilty for pleasure. Be strategic, but don’t think our strategies are always God’s strategies. Be willing to do anything, go anywhere, and minister to anyone. It matters more who you are than where you are. City, suburb, or country, if we are growing in godliness we will not be unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:8).”

- Kevin DeYoung

What do the two have in common?  Check out this excellent article by Doug Wilson to find out.

New movies are usually released to theaters every Friday, but who’s got 10 bucks these days to drop on a movie that may well be a load of crap? Given those odds, on Friday I offer an alternative on DVD that you can rent at your local video store (or in some cases, avoid at all costs). Some will be new releases, others you may have to hunt for, but all of them are available to light up your small screen should it be a lazy Friday night.

The Big Lebowski

As I’ve written before, I’m usually a fan of any film made by the Coen brothers.  It’s been repeatedly brought to my attention, though, that one of my shortcomings as a Coens fan is the fact that I hadn’t seen one of their hallmark films, The Big Lebowski. The movie is quite eccentric, even for the Coens (and that’s saying something), but it has found a cult following that likely exceeds all their other work.  So, to rectify my deficiency, last Saturday night while Heather was at work my friend Josh and I rented the movie.  What we found was a movie that was one of the most bizarre films I’d ever seen, but an undeniably enjoyable experience.

The movie centers around The Dude (Jeff Bridges).  Real name Jeffery Lebowski, The Dude is an unemployed, perpetually high slacker who spends most of his time bowling with a couple of his friends – Walter (John Goodman), a Vietnam vet with rage issues, and Donny (Steve Buscemi), a dim-witted doormat.  A case of mistaken identity gets The Dude in over his head, though, when men break into his house seeking to extract money from the free-spending trophy wife of a local millionaire who also happens to be named Jeffery Lebowski.  After The Dude heads to see the other Lebowski in an effort to get his rug replaced, he finds that Lebowski’s wife has been kidnapped, and Lebowski enlists The Dude as the delivery man in her ransom.  This starts The Dude on a crazy journey as he meets one bizarre character after another in an attempt to save the woman – and his own skin.

If you’ve seen a Coen film like Fargo with all its eccentricities, perhaps the best way I know to describe Lebowski is to imagine that film with the quirky factor cranked up to eleven, as the Spinal Tap guys might say.  Every character is a sight to behold, from the aforementioned leads to supporting characters like Lebowski’s on-edge butler (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his artist daughter (Julianne Moore), and a crazy pedophile bowler named Jesus (John Turturro, who may never have played a normal person in a movie in his life).   The film’s best moments are its character moments, with the Coens’ clever dialogue and eye for the absurd on full display throughout.  However, the narrative that strings the characters together feels thin throughout, and the downside of having such out-there characters is the fact that they can often be difficult to invest in.  This results in a movie that carries the audience along from dry joke to dry joke with some serious slow points in-between.  In the end, it was more engaging listening to Sam Elliott’s stranger talk about the tale than it was watching the tale itself.  This is a movie, though, that is worth the price of admission simply for the cast of characters that only the Coen brothers could put onscreen.  Fair warning – the movie is profanity-laden throughout (if you’ve seen Fargo, you know about what to expect) and there are several scenes involving nudity as well.  This is a movie that will certainly have a niche audience (that’s the definition of a cult film, after all), but if you get that niche, you’ll have a good time.  – *** (out of 4)

The Big Lebowski is rated R for pervasive strong language, drug content, sexuality and brief violence.

…and I figure there’s a decent chance you might too.

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

- Matthew 6:31-33

HT: Vitamin Z