Hammer on Anvil '

For any of you who don’t know me personally, I am a huge Star Wars fan. It’s almost embarrassing really, because I’ve read over 50 of the books. Yeah, I’m THAT guy.

Over the past week I’ve been reading Force Heretic I: Remnant by Sean Williams and Shane Dix. (Side note: I do NOT recommend this book for anyone who has not read the preceding books in the New Jedi Order series, because you will have no idea what is going on. If you’ve never read a Star Wars book, I highly recommend you start with Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. It’s the first book in the Thrawn trilogy and it is fantastic.)

Okay, enough nerding out. As I read the book, I encountered some quotes that have interesting spiritual implications when taken out of context.

Quote #1: “There will always be some who would rather hear a convincing lie than an uncomfortable truth.”

This is probably true of all of us at some point in our lives. Let’s face it, being a true Christ-follower isn’t easy; it’s much more of an uncomfortable truth. There are all manner of convincing lies that we can tell ourselves to spare us from that truth. I spoke about a few of these back in September when I talked about the myth of basically good, the myth of many roads to heaven, and the myth of belief. In the end, no lie, however convincing, can replace the truth.

Quote #2: “Choose now, or die indecisive.”

This is so true of our spiritual, eternal lives! It’s hard for our minds to grasp the concept of time as being infinite, but if you even try, it’s easy to see just how short our time on Earth is. We like holding onto the lies mentioned in quote #1, but the fact is, we must make a choice. Option #1: eternal life in Heaven. Option #2: eternal life in hell. And failure to make a choice forces us to choose option #2 by default. Don’t die indecisive!

Quote #3: “Sometimes it’s harder to make a friend than it is to fight an enemy.”

This one has a bit of a deeper spiritual meaning than the previous two (and has strong connections to my post last week). It’s easy for us to look at some things and know, without a doubt, that they are bad (and can therefore be considered the enemy). For example, most of us could agree that a child being homeless and hungry, a widow being frail and alone, or an innocent person being murdered are all bad things. For each of these things, it is easy to take a stand and shout to the world, “That is wrong!” After all, who is going to argue with you, except perhaps the murderers? But while being a Christian will certainly require us to fight the enemy, that is not where it stops. We also have to draw close to Jesus Christ and make him our friend. Don’t fall into the trap of convincing yourself that fighting the enemy makes you a friend of Christ. (See Matthew 7:21-23)

Who knew that so much spiritual truth could be found in Star Wars?!?