Let No One Deceive You, Heaven is for Real

"Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die!"

When it comes to other people's experiences of God, we need to be careful as Christians.  Can we show people grace and mercy even if we don't understand or find some things they say problematic or unscriptural to our own understanding of the Bible.  It is easy for Christians and atheists to show contempt towards others prior to investigation or truly trying to understand where the other person is coming from.  If this world needs heaven and more saints, this surely will not come from Christians being known as harsh critics and being judgmental.  There is a difference between testing the spirits and grieving the Spirit.

When people have spiritual encounters or even paranormal experiences, should they not receive our love and effort to understand them, no matter how hard it is to understand what is really going on?  It seems that since Satan counterfeits so many spiritual experiences, it is easier to discount all spiritual experiences outside our own limited ones.  Can other people's life experiences reshape or even challenge some of our assumptions concerning the Bible?  Even when other people's experiences sound wild, bizarre, or strange, we should neither mock or attack them.  Should not our attitude be more of open and cautious rather than closed and obstinate.

When it comes to the strange, bizarre, and weird, they are all found in the Bible.  One can not simply dismiss other people's testimony or experiences because they do not conform to what we think is either normal or safe.  The truth is silence does not prove anything one way or another in the Bible. If there has to be a biblical precedent for everything someone does then Jesus would have never met those standards of his day much less any new thing God may be trying to demonstrate or show us in the present. 

If Jesus taught us anything, it is we are to look at the fruit of people's experiences.  Is it drawing someone closer or farther away from God?  Does it produce a deeper love for God, God's Word, and God's people or does it hurt the body of Christ?  Rather than critics simply resorting to "Where is that found in the Bible?", can we come from the other side "Is it contrary to God's Word?"  Let's not confuse extra-biblical from unbiblical!

I have watched the movie and read the book, "Heaven is for Real" and I like many others, find the stories of a four year old both humbling and encouraging.  I will share some of my favorite quotes from the book in the next post but I find it very belittling to take a few of the weakest or potential troubling parts of the book like people have wings or the Holy Spirit is 'kinda blue' and then mock the whole thing.  What about all the inspiring and beautiful parts of the book or movie?  From the critics perspective, it seems they are only there to find the bad and not the good.  Is this how we would want others to treat us?

I have come to the place where I don't think the church can afford any more to simply rubber stamp every spiritual experience much less condemn anything they don't understand or can't neatly fit into Scripture as either deceptive, cultic, or from the Devil (even though there are these counterfeits, let's  please not throw the baby out with the water, even if the water gets pretty murky and dirty at times). 

There are many Christian people who have spiritual manifestations or events that happen in their life that are real and they must exercise discernment but that does not mean it's not real.  We simply cannot write off all spiritually weird phenomena, ghost stories, near death experiences and the like as simply fictions, lies, and spiritual deception.  It would be interesting to know the whole history of the church and document these strange experiences by people who are canonized as saints and are known for their orthodox theology.

In the end, there is something fundamentally wrong when sophisticated adult Christians are mocking the account of a four year old child.  It's like "you can't believe children, they are too young to know what they are talking about!"  One of the things Colton Burpo learned from his heavenly experience is "Jesus really, really loves children."  Do we?  It is a misunderstanding to equate Colton's heavenly experience or vision as he died and went to heaven and came back.  He never died and to put him into that category is a mistake from the get go.

What I find are a few teachers of the Bible who criticize "Heaven is for Real" and say very confidently that the Scriptures are clear that nobody goes to heaven and comes back to tell about it no matter how many people claim otherwise (people who have near death experiences are called "NDE's").  If one drops all the reading in between the lines concerning Lazarus who should have given us a full report of his four day journey when he died and came back, what I see are two scriptures where this whole edifice typically rests upon.  Two scriptures do not make up the clear testimony of Scripture and comes closer to looking like proof texting.

The two texts often quoted against the movie and book and all "NDE's" is Proverbs 30:4 and John 3:13.  Both speak of nobody ascending to heaven or descending to heaven and earth except the Messiah Jesus (the only perfect man who came from heaven).  Before I speak to these verses of Scripture, I want to say we need to distinguish between people who have visionary experiences of heaven like Colton Burpo and those who say they actually died and was in heaven until they were revived back to life.  There are several people who have visionary experiences of heaven in the Bible from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul's third heaven vision, and John's grand vision of heaven in the book of Revelation.  The Bible is simply silent on people actually dying, going somewhere (intermediate state) and then returning and talking about it.  Just because it is not recorded in Scripture does not mean it never happened then or can't happen today.

The truth is these two texts taken literally mean that nobody ascends to heaven or descends to earth.  Only God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and those with God in heaven (angels and the heavenly host) ascend or descend.  Something the church and world needs to understand and often does not get is heaven is not something you go up to but something that comes to you!  Heaven is both a present and future reality.  Heaven comes to us because of Christ and because of Christ in us, heaven is in us.  If there is one thing people need more of today are people living like citizens of heaven on earth rather than simply living a worldly life and waiting on heaven.  The world is crying out for the sons and daughters of God to bring heaven to earth.  The earth can no longer wait for God's children not to bring heaven to earth and if we really think about it, heaven can't wait either!

Recovering Holy Week

"Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder"  -  Abraham Joshua Heschel

If many Christians were honest, they would probably say that holy week has greatly lost its significance.  Ministers find themselves wanting to recover from their hectic schedules during holy week and holy week simply does not captivate Christians imaginations or hearts like it used to.  So I suggest we need to recover Holy Week.  I don't mean we are not practicing it but I mean speaking and living it in a new light.  Let me give a few thoughts from my experience this week as I meditate on this Holy Saturday.

1.  Palm Sunday should caution us.  We speak of cheering crowds, palm waving, and excitement on Palm Sunday.  And certainly there needs to be a higher dose of enthusiasm and celebration in many churches.  But as the people cheered, Jesus wept?  Why?  They missed their day of visitation.  The refused to repent and wanted religion on their own terms.  Essentially, the people celebrated their own misunderstanding of Jesus.  They though Jesus was going to fix their problems and conquer their enemies.  Jesus came to conquer their sins and the slavery the Devil had on their lives.  Do we ever celebrate a misunderstanding of Jesus today?  Have we missed the day to repent and missed God's visitation?

2.  Maundy Thursday should shock us.  We think of this as a night of communion and sharing the Lord's supper together.  A night of prayer and foot washing.  But this is the day the disciples are arguing over who is going to be the greatest in God's kingdom.  Everyone wanted to sit at either Jesus right or left and one of the person's who get the honored seat of position is none other than Judas.  No one could imagine one of Jesus closest friends betraying him.  No one could have imagined Jesus shocking words that he was going to die.  No one could imagine what was going to happen in the prayer garden where Jesus would be arrested, tried at night, and executed the next day.  This was the day that shocked the world.  Is there anything that shocks us during holy week anymore.  Is there anything that comes close to challenging us beyond the dullness of we have "been there and done that?"  Are we shocked in recognizing who Jesus really is and what he demands from us this day?

3.  Good Friday should terrify us.  We call it good Friday but there was nothing good in what those first disciples experienced on that day where Jesus was brutally tortured and murdered.  Betrayal, desertion, cowardly hiding, denials of even knowing Christ, these were the watch words of that day.  Sheer terror and fear gripped Jesus disciples.  There was no way for them to know that the earthquake that gripped their hearts was going to turn into an earthquake that raised the dead.  Do we dare enter into the sheer horror of this Friday we call good because the only good person that ever lived  hung dead on a tree.  Can we smell the shredded flesh, the grinding of teeth of the crowds, the sweat and dirt mingled together with the stench of death in the air.  This was not a tame Messiah just like this was not a tame crucifixion.  Do we ever feel the terror and fear of God in our souls?

4.  Easter Sunday should burn within our hearts.  I know one minister who is talking about resurrecting marriage as he continues his series on marriage through Easter Sunday.  I know other Christian leaders who have told me that Easter has lost its mystery and just seems like another day of the week.  Where is the power and beauty of the resurrection of Jesus?  Where is the burning within our hearts like those early followers of Jesus experienced on the road to Emmaus?  If Easter is dead then so is any hope of an afterlife with God.  If Easter is without hope, then we are as the Apostle Paul said people who should be greatly pitied!  My whole heart cries out that I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me (Gal.5).  There is no resurrection without death.  Easter is our hope for a better future, not only for this world but for the world to come.  Maranatha!

Ablaze with God

"The great tragedy today is that the situation is desperate, but the saints are not"  -  Vance Havner

This holy week has been different for me.  I have been spending more time in solitude and reflection.  There is something kindling in my soul and I feel God's pleasure all around me.  In the midst of all this, the world around me, especially the church world seems in total disarray.  We denounce risky people as outlaws and force people who are different to exit our safe havens we call sanctuaries.  Are there no more frontiers for the church?  Is there nothing to learn in the wilderness?  Have we sold our spiritual birthright for a cheap imitation with little substance to sustain the Christian life?

Our youthful idealism has faded by the world of conformity.  Our child like faith has become all grown up and jaded in the process.  We have become so proper and cautious in our faith that there is very little worth taking risks for any more.  Is it possible for the church to be intoxicated by God again?

If the church were honest, we need to start another recovery group simply called L.A. (loneliness anonymous).  As the population grows, loneliness keeps increasing.  As we march into Good Friday, Jesus died to take away our sins, not our feelings.  Feelings need to be experienced and shared, not rejected or ignored or stuffed away for a later day. In the midst of all the noise, pain, and loneliness, I believe God is on the move.  For those who have spiritual eyes to see, God is doing immeasurably more than we could ever ask for or imagine.  My heart is pounding as a huge cyclone of God's Spirit is about to hit the world.  Are you ready?

Chasing Francis

"A miracle of humility in an age of vanity"  -  Elton John

I have always held a long deep respect for the Catholic tradition.  My western roots go long and far.  Even though I connect with Eastern Orthodox theology more than Catholicism, I still have my roots in the western church, a strong desire towards catholicity, and I greatly respect a combined liturgy with contemporary forms of worship (especially in the charismatic forms of the Catholic Church).  My experiences overall have been positive by my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ.  I even had a Catholic seminary professor for a mentor for several years.

Pope John Paul II was such an inspiration to me for so many years of my Christian life that I was depressed for two weeks after his death.  I struggled with Pope Benedict but came to appreciate him as well.  But I knew something very strange and unusual was going on when Pope Benedict retired from being Pope.  This kind of thing simply does not happen and I knew something powerfull and spiritual was going on in all this.

Suddenly Pope Francis comes on the scene, the first Latin American Pope and a breath of fresh air since he literally is trying to follow the simple humble path of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Pope Francis is like the people's Pope.  He wants the church to be more inclusive, reaching out to the poor and disenfranchised.  He is so simple and down to earth and here it comes, so non-judgmental.  Even atheists and gays are welcomed by this Pope as he looks for new ways to build bridges and tear down walls that have kept Christians not only apart, but much of the world outside the walls of the church.

Here is a Pope who washes the feet of other religious leaders.  Who eats breakfast with the disabled and refuses all the luxury and trappings that go along with being Pope.   There are winds of change and renewal in the air with this new Pope.  Can you smell it?  Here is a Pope that wants to build bridges with Evangelical Christians and wants to decentralize the Papacy so there would be more power among a collegiality of bishops.  Here is a Pope who is willing in the spirit of Christ to give away power rather than exercising it over others.

It's almost like Pope Francis is a man in a hurry to start a revolution in the Catholic Church.  He wants all Christians to have a renewed encounter with Christ.  He yearns for a day that true unity and full communion can happen between separated Christians.  He is turning the Catholic world upside down or maybe more accurately, right side up like another much younger revolutionary did 2000 years ago when it came to the Jewish religion.  I wait in anticipation to see what God may do with Christianity where half the church is represented by Roman Catholics.  Christ's return may be closer than we think and seeing Christ get his bride ready for him may be sooner than we think.

Answering a Question with a Question

The religious leaders asked Jesus by what authority was he doing the things he was doing.  Jesus said he would only answer their question if they answered his question.  They refused to answer Jesus question so he refused to answer theirs! (Mark 11:27-33)

It amazes me that our conventional Christian wisdom of the day is so far from Jesus that we can call it "Christian" when it resembles so little of Jesus and the way he lived.  We teach our kids to get a good education and fit well into society.  In other words, we want our children to be successful.  Jesus lived a whole counter cultural lifestyle but we tell our children we want them to fit safely into society. 

We tell people who have doubts that doubts are bad, ignore them, hide them, and surely, don't talk about them.  When John the Baptist doubted who he was, Jesus still commended him for his faith.  Doubt unchecked can lead people away from God but doubt explored and challenged can lead to greater faith in Christ.

Jesus used humor, irony, satire in his teachings but for today's conventional wisdom, that is too impolite, mean-spirited, or just in bad taste.  Jesus drank wine but Christians can not.  Jesus hung out with all the wrong people and we are told using another Bible axiom, "bad company corrupts good morals."  Worse, people we see as opponents to the Christian faith we neither respect nor show them our love but all they get is our contempt.  Either they are to be pitied for being so foolish or they are simply a fool who has said in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1).  Never mine that the fool says with his mouth he believes in God.  Never mind that the larger context is about Israel's apostasy where they say one thing with their mouth and their lives tell a different story.  This text better applies to the Christian who lives like there is no God rather than the atheist who defines oneself as against God or God's existence.

Somehow in this world with all it duplicity and conceit, we are supposed to play it's power and manipulation games over one another.  The world says come out to play and Christians are expected to play by the world's rules.  Some of us are taking a more ancient path that is either not playing the game at all or changing the rules and then asking the world to play a new game so to speak. 

The late Robert Webber in his book "The Younger Evangelicals" wisely told atheists he was not playing the apologetic philosophy game any more when it came to whose arguments are better and may the smartest person win.  Webber challenged atheists to play a new game.  One where it was not one simply about ideas and arguments but stories.  Let me tell you a story of God, Israel, Jesus, and the church and how that has shaped the world and you tell me how your story of atheism makes this world a better place?

Webber comes off too much like Jesus so I am not surprised that it is not atheists but other academic Christian scholars who take Webber to task.  "That is not fair or how the game is to be played!"  Or as one academic Christian scholar said in an article that Webber is going into retreat and simply refuses to answer legitimate intellectual objections people have to belief.  He rightly says that people will probably then not hear your story.  But isn't this exactly the point and what happens to Jesus in his encounters?  The people did not want to listen to Jesus, they wanted to make him look bad.  The religious leaders did not want to follow Jesus, they wanted to destroy him.

In the end, how far does a Christian apologist really think he is going to get with a person who thinks Christianity is the real enemy to life and world peace?  How far does the Christian apologist have to go before he realizes he is dealing with some people who are not skeptical seekers but hostile antagonists.  How long does it take before Christians wake up to realize that our time may be better spent in quiet discipleship and spiritual disciplines that feeds the soul rather than loud debates and long drawn out arguments. 

I certainly believe Christians have to give answers to questions of faith but sometimes a Christian may need to be more like Jesus and answer a question with a question.  And if others refuse to answer our questions, rather than arguing with them, we may be doing them and ourselves a favor to refuse to enter into a whole debate that neither honors God and makes God's people look bad.

Easter Scandal

"Scandals followed Jesus wherever he went"

It is quite amazing that we have sanitized Jesus life so much that his whole life and death and resurrection seem less embarrassing much less scandalous.  The events around Jesus birth would scandalize conservatives and liberals alike.  Conservative would be scandalized by a baby born out of wedlock and liberals would be scandalized that Jesus was born at all, especially by such nonsense as a virgin birth.  There was the scandal of Jesus bad table manners and overturning tables and driving people out.  There is the scandal of Jesus hanging around the wrong people and supposedly drinking and eating too much to be any kind of a proper man of God. 

Then there was Jesus shameful execution.  Only criminals and frauds end up on crosses.  And then there is the whole embarrassment of the resurrection.  The Jews believed that God could raise a person from the dead but they did not expect the Messiah to be raised.  To be crucified was a sign of illegitimacy and a curse, certainly not a way to receive God's favor.  Besides, the Messiah was to be someone who would be victorious over Israel's enemies and bring in a long awaited vindication of Israel, not a vindication of the Messiah on Israel's and the world's behalf.

Let's face it, scandals are inconvenient truths and we have tamed and sanitized Jesus down so much that scandals have turned into politically correct conveniences for the church.  The scandal of Easter has been lost and we can all sleep better for it.

To Pilgrims, Monks, and Mystics

"I have found heaven on earth, since heaven is God, and God is in my soul"  -  Elizabeth of the Trinity

The more I study the Bible, the bigger it gets and the smaller I become.  The longer I meditate on God's Word, the more it penetrates the depths of my heart.  The more I learn, the less I know.  Instead of me mastering the Bible, the Bible is mastering me.  To be a mystic is to encounter God in the ordinary and the everyday.  The movie "Heaven is for Real" comes out tomorrow and I find Christian pilgrims, monks, and mystics stumble, run, and fall into the unseen realm of heaven all the time.  Many times we are neither looking for God or heaven but God and heaven have a habit of finding and running headlong into us.

My prayer life is changing.  My prayers are simply echoes of listening to God and His Word and praying them back to heaven where they come from.  I am learning how to come into God's presence every day.  I find myself at times simply praying my concerns to God and then God prays His concerns for the world back through me.

2014 is like a new season preparing us for another spiritual season of 2015.  I see the wheat and the tares growing together, God doing more than I have ever seen before and Satan trying more to stop God's heavenly advancement on earth.  I am not one for apocalyptic fevers but I pray for all my brothers and sisters in Christ for the coming days because I sense something huge on the horizon spiritually.  The spiritual always changes the natural and manifests in the physical world around us.
Things are not always what they seem.  People who are comfortable will find their world shaken apart and those who find themselves in the miry clay will be lifted out of it to a place they could have never come on their own but only by God's help and direction.

Be still, and know God!

From Doubt, to Faith, to Praise

"I remember an old story that as a young man, I thought I would win the world to Christ.  As a middle aged man, I thought I would win a few to Christ.  As an old man, I hope to win myself to Christ."

I love reading the early church fathers, patristic history, spiritual exegesis of scripture, and I'm enjoying Jason Byassee's book, "Praise Seeking Understanding."  This book reminds me of my own spiritual journey of struggling with doubt, using doubt in service of my faith, to faith seeking understanding, and finally, to know a life of praise that goes beyond even understanding.

One of the great truths from reading the Psalms with Augustine and getting to know the mind of the early church fathers is understanding the spiritual end of Scripture where the literal only touches the surface of biblical meaning but it certainly does not take us very deep into the world of the Bible.  Can we learn the skills to discern the mystery of Christ on every page of Scripture as the Fathers did?  It is so easy today in our modern world and comfortable church life to ignore or miss mystery and try to avoid the difficulties within the biblical texts.  We desire clever reading strategies to avoid the hard sayings of Jesus in the pages of Scripture.

The mystery of Christ helps us see things and live in such a way that is different and even in conflict with the ways of the world.  As we enter into holy week, Christians are drawn into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and are even called into an ascended life "with Christ."  When we read the scriptures with the early church fathers, we see patterns, types, and spiritual figures that unfold the mystery of knowing Jesus in a greater way.  When this begins to happen, nothing can remain the same because Christ himself draws us into his created order in ways where there simply is no turning back.

The mystery of Christ takes us into a mystical encounter with him every day.  Jesus can no longer be a distant stranger or a long, lost friend who is uninvolved in our lives.  They mystery of Christ reveals Christ for everyone and in everything.  While we are busy amusing ourselves to death, Christ is waiting and always present to us.  Christ can no longer be shut up in church buildings but God's people must go to the streets and the darkest corners of their neighborhoods.  And what others see and discover is not some belief in Christ, there is nothing mysterious about that.  What people begin to understand is we belong to Christ as we live in the beauty and mystery of His love.

Contemplating the New Atheism

"Every generation gets the atheism it deserves!" - Michael Hanby

So many of the books and articles against the new atheism have been as pedestrian, patronizing, and dismissive mirroring the same kind of rhetoric the new atheists employ against the religious and Christians.  Maybe the sheer hypocrisy and harsh judgments people have experienced from church people leads us to the out right hostility people see coming from the new atheism?  Sometimes Christianity harshest critics are the very people we need to listen and respond to.  Certainly when it comes to skeptics and people who have been hurt by the church, the church needs to pay attention more and listen to the concerns of her critics.  When it comes to the church's own cultural idolatries, these need to rightly be challenged and discarded.

As I have been studying the church fathers, the concept of mystery (more to come in the next post on this), the apophatic tradition and contemplative Christianity, one needs to first understand that God is not an object or a philosophical idea to study.  God is a person to encounter!  I am reminded of the great contemplative Thomas Merton who once said that "the atheist's experience of God is purely negative whereas the apophatic contemplative is negatively positive."  A real difference between Christians and atheists are Christians read the Scripture as an icon, image, and full of Christ whereas the atheists read it as logic, argument, and a flat book.

Besides the gross lack of discipleship and Christian imagination in many churches, the new world we all find ourselves in privileges the modern narrative of interpreting life through the lens of science that reduces all reality to the explainable and natural as well as having little to no room for mystery and God.  The fragmentation we all face as Christians, skeptics, and atheists effects us all.  Fragmentation, loss of identity, and interpretive pluralism rule our brave new world.  In place of the church, the modern state now competes as the sole place at the table to ensure people's values and security.

In the midst of all this, the church seems to resort to name calling and criticizing the world rather than being the place where the world can find refuge and healing.  What the world needs to see is not more apologists combating atheists but more followers of Jesus turning this world right side up with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What does Scripture say and what do the Early Church Fathers say?

"What if our modern ways of reading the Bible are nothing more than clever strategies to avoid Christ in the pages of scripture?" -  Jason Byassee

I am reading several books dealing with the early church fathers understanding of Scripture.  They were much more at home with mystery, paradox, and even saw scriptural difficulties as pointers to God rather than stumbling blocks to trip up Christian readers.  The early church fathers believed God's Word should be filled with riddles, enigmas, and difficulty.  Why?  Here are a list of a few reasons why the early church fathers though this and why we need to get back to doing the hard work of historical studies and not just contemporary ones.

1.  God wanted to conceal deeper truths of scripture from those who are unworthy.  To disclose the full magnificence of Scripture to all would be to cast pearls before swine.  Scripture is both to reveal and to conceal.  Only those who are willing to strive for virtue will succeed in unraveling the obscurities of Scripture.

2.  The fact that Scripture has hidden meanings allows for different levels of teaching to reach people at different levels of spiritual receptivity.  The more spiritual readers learn from the higher meanings which address the healing of the soul.  In fact, it can be harmful for people to take in teachings that are beyond their capacity to receive.  It is wise, therefore, for God to hide these more profound realities from those who are not ready for them.

3.  Obscure and enigmatic language is an effective means of communicating profound ideals.  Sacred texts speak obscurely precisely so that they may be explained in manifold ways.  Cryptic language was seen as a fitting medium to express deep mysteries (excerpts from "The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture: What the Early Church can teach us by Michael Graves, pp.61-63).

In other words, the difficulties within the Bible provoke the reader to dig deeper and work harder in understanding the Scriptures.  Searching, seeking, and digging become hidden ways of uncovering and discovering the depths and riches of God's Word.

Missing God at the Movies

"If the Devil is in the details, where is God?"

I went excitedly to see the big block buster movie 'Noah.'  I listened to other Christians concerns and controversy over the movie before the movie even came out and I wanted to see it for myself.  I went with my twin brother to the movie and I noticed all the people in front of me were going to see the movie "God's not dead."  Rather than paying closer attention to that detail, I quickly thought, low budget Christian movie versus big budget big actor movie.  The decision was easy to make at the moment with my fallen reason not paying attention to the details of what God might be telling me in all this.  So I went to see the two and a half hour long movie Noah and walked out after the first hour. 

Why? I simply was overwhelmingly bored and thought, if the first hour is this bad, why should I go through another hour and half of it?  A few days later I saw the movie "God's not dead" and was deeply encouraged and moved by the message.  It was by far the best movie Pureflix has ever produced.  I hope this trend continues in the future.  I was also amazed at Kevin Sorbo's great performance.  He will not win any awards for this politically incorrect made for Christians to watch movie but I was mesmerized by his portrayal of a college atheist professor.  I know the atheist community will be upset over this portrayal and yet I thought it was quite accurate of the intellectual elitism one often runs into at the university level whether that be an atheist, Christian, or any other intellectually seasoned teacher who misses the Bible's admonition that 'knowledge puffs up but love builds up.'

So the next time you go to the movies, pay attention to the details, maybe it's not the Devil in the details but God?