Everything is Awesome...really?

Bricks and more bricks. Blocks and more blocks. Apparently close to 4 million unique bricks were used in the Lego Movie to create a virtual Lego world. Man, that's a lot of bricks, even if it's all computer animated. And an amazing sight it was, watching all those little pieces literally come alive on a giant cinema screen, carried off into the comic adventures of a nondescript, perfectly average, ordinary construction worker named Emmet who gets mistaken for the "most talented, most interesting, most special person in the universe", tasked to save the world from destruction by an evil, brain-washing dictator who rules from a high tower, so-o reminiscent of Sauron's Tower in Lord of the Rings. It was a literal roller-coaster ride of funny gags, cleverly parodied by some of the most diverse real and reel characters ludicrously thrown together as a team of "Master-Builders" - Batman, Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare, Wonder Woman, Ninja Turtles, Dumbledore and the 2002 NBA All-Stars. It even threw in a Pirates of the Caribbean ship and a Star Wars space-craft to boot. One reviewer termed it "conceptually audacious, visually astonishing and startlingly sophisticated" - it's that good. Not to mention it featured a catchy tune repeating the tag-line Everything is Awesome so many times it sticks in your head and will have you humming on as you leave the hall.

Indeed it's a feel-good movie with something for everybody from kids to adults. And its got a universal theme that speaks to all of us 'ordinary people', whose lives are probably a lot like Emmet's; very often  reduced to a daily grind of following standard 'instructions' (eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work) with nothing much to look forward to  - the meaninglessness of life where tomorrow is the same as yesterday and the day before. That's how it can get in the real world too. And just as Emmet is 'happy' with his condition, we too can be happily unaware that there can be another way to live. It's easy to go thru life, just trying to 'fit in' to be like one of the 'regulars'. But somewhere in his peg-head brain, Emmet, despite being so 'generic as to be indistinguishable', is vaguely aware of something missing from his life.

We too may go for years believing this earth is all the life we get to live. But we were never designed to be just 'ordinary' people. God isn't ordinary, and if we accept that we are beings created in His image, surely we are not meant to be ordinary. Something in the deepest part of me tells me I am not just like any other 'animal', born to 'just' live, let live and then die. There must be something  more than a good or great life on this earth; otherwise like the wisest king on earth Solomon declared, "Meaningless, meaningless! Utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless!" (Ecclesiastes 1:2) We can pretend, even believe, we are ok. But sooner or later, the heart feels a certain wistfulness that comes when we pause long enough to lift up our eyes from our so-smart gadgets we can't live without these days to behold the glory of a sun-set, or tune out of our Spotify play-list to catch the sound of (real) birds chirping outside the window. I call those moments of awakening, when the heart stirs with a certain hope and yearning for a life beyond the mundane....when something extra happens, and a new dimension invades the ordinary.

That moment came when our hero stumbles upon the piece of resistance which identifies him as the special someone from an ancient prophecy of a blind wizard who would save the world from extinction. A more unlikely hero there never was, as the movie totally overturns the normal run-of-the-mill concept of what a 'super-hero' should be. Emmet's way out of the league of smart Master builders, his brain is literally a void, "so prodigiously empty" he's never had an original thought apart from the totally dumb and pointless idea of building a double decker TV couch for non-existent friends. But he does become a hero who saves the day when he believes he can be that 'someone special'. He didn't turn into a smartie-pants strong-man, neither was he given any magic hammers to wave around. He was still Emmet, but a different Emmet. The delicious irony of it all comes in the confession of the wizard's ghost who pops up to tell Emmet, "The only thing anyone needs to be special is to believe that they’re special...The prophecy’s made up. But it’s also true. You can still change everything."

Believe. Such a potent word. We can believe or disbelieve anything or anyone, and the consequences can be literally life-saving or self-destructing. It's either the catalyst that frees you to soar like an eagle or the chain that ties you down to a prescribed life within your own defensive walls. Emmet had  a choice - to believe he was hopelessly ordinary or gloriously extraordinary.  Likewise God brings us to a point when we have to decide whether or not to believe we are no more than a string of body cells amassed together to exist for a certain number of years the best we can, living out our own (pathetically limited - compared to God's) dreams and desires. Or we believe He exists and has a fantastic plan for each one of us, way beyond anything we can ever imagine. We can dismiss Him as unnecessary - all 'made up' like some mumbo-jumbo prophecy -  and go our own way into an ordinary (good) life, or believe we are indeed meant for better things - a life extraordinary grounded in an extraordinary God, who came that we "might have life, and...have it more abundantly" (John 10:10)

Emmet found freedom in daring to believe a prophecy, even though it was rhymed-up rubbish. Jesus came as the prophesied Messiah who would save the world. People then and now still think that's rubbish too. But if we dare to believe Him, His promise is "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). Perhaps we don't (want to) believe because we don't dare to take God at His word. We don't really want to know the truth about ourselves or about God, and so settle for a lie, that we are perfectly fine living perfectly ordered (and ordinary) lives. Someone astutely observed that many people choose not to admit there is a God because if we did, then we would be forced to face up to (and change) ourselves, which is  something our human nature automatically rebels against, because we'd rather believe that you are ok, I am ok, everybody is ok (only God is not ok). The saying goes, There is none so blind as the one who will not (not cannot) see. Jesus talked about people who, "though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand....ever hearing but never understanding,... ever seeing but never perceiving" (Matthew 13:13-14)

I guess it's so much easier to remain in the comfortable cave of familiarity and 'safety' , where everything can be explained away, deduced by and reduced to human logic instead of venturing out to leap over the cliff of doubt. Heck, I have done my time peering over it, wondering if there really is a God who will bear me up should I jump off. But despite my faithlessness, He has proven Himself true because every time I dared to take that jump into the unknown, He has always caught and borne me up to fly. Unlike Emmet, I can't even save myself, much less save the world. But one thing I can do - believe that God exists, that He loves me and He wants way better for me than the best I can ever want for myself. That belief leads to perfect freedom, where truly and really, everything is awesome....all because I believe Him.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Hebrews 11:6