#650. Watching the wrong movies.

A few weeks ago, I bumped into a problem that’s plagued me for years, if not decades.

Was it deodorant related? No, but thank you for asking. I am well aware of that issue. I’m Old Spice Red Zone all the way but fear I might have beaten it. Is that possible? Is it possible that my body has bested that deodorant and I need to move on to something else? I can’t wear Axe body spray in large part due to the countless semi-clothed ladies who uncontrollably throw themselves at you the minute you drench your skin in something named “Swagger.” I’m running out of deodorant options, and I’m not kidding. I was probably one of the only people who packed deodorant in the backpack they wore around the Catalyst Conference. Bible? Sure everybody had that. Notebook? Without a doubt. Deodorant? I had it. But that wasn’t the issue that came up …

Here’s what happened, I was sitting in my seat during the last session of the Catalyst Conference. It had been an amazing three days of just the craziest proportions. But sitting there, listening to Andy Stanley, I suddenly heard a familiar sound … rewind.

Like an old school VCR, the last three days rewound in my head and started to play through the worst moments of the conference.

Oh, there I am impatiently interrupting a conversation with someone just because I want to meet them.

Oh, there I am telling someone what the web traffic stats are for Stuff Christians Like.

Oh, there I am being not funny or not gracious or not a million things.

There I am failing and falling and stumbling and missing the mark in countless ways.

That’s what I tend to do after an experience. I sit down and my head immediately starts to obsess on the things that could have gone better, the small moments or big moments in which I could have done things differently. The cracks in my thin little façade of perfection. I watch a failure movie over and over until I feel really insecure and useless.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever seen a regret movie in your head? Something you said at work or a ball you dropped or a relationship you messed up? Have you ever watched the memory of your worst moments?

Maybe not, maybe regret cinema is something you never buy a ticket to, but I do, and I’ve done it for years, until that afternoon at Catalyst.

Out of nowhere, I felt like God interrupted the film with a question.

“Jon, when you go to Disney World with your kids, what do you talk about when you get back? Do you sit down at the dinner table and review the worst moments of the trip? Do you talk through and obsess over the ways L.E. and McRae could have been better? Do you focus on the tantrums and the meltdowns and all the ways your kids weren’t perfect waiting in line for the rides? Or do you laugh? Do you celebrate the happy moments? Do look at the pictures and the smiles and the joy that abounded? Which thing do you do as a father?”

That was an easy question for me to answer. I rewind the joy. I celebrate and remember the happiness. I would never sit my kids down and hand pick out their worst moments from an experience and make them watch them as I played those over and over again at the dinner table.

“Right, and you’re a human.” I felt like God said. “You’re a human father and you don’t do that. If that’s the case, think then how much more loving and perfect I am in my relationship with you. If you don’t do that, why would you ever think I would? The failure movie is not my film. That is not of me.”

I pushed pause. In that moment I stopped the film and I remembered a verse, Romans 8:1:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, …”

If I’m being honest, sometimes I rewrite that verse in my head. I write it, “There is now some condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Or “There is now at least a little condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But that’s not what it says.

There is no condemnation.

There is no condemnation.

There is no condemnation.

Will the Holy Spirit convict you? Certainly. Will God reveal areas of your heart He wants to shine His light into? Without a doubt. Will God condemn you? Will God press play on the failure film of your life? Will He make you mentally relive your worst moments over and over again? No. That’s not God, that’s an attack.

And I think it’s time for all of us to stop watching the wrong movies.