...And If Ever You Come Near, I'll Hold Up High A Mirror. Lord, I Could Never Show You Anything As Beautiful As You!

Sometimes, God will strike me in some of the oddest places. Almost always, I'm doing, watching, or listening to something that I have no expectation of giving me any sort of spiritual realization. This is one of my favorite parts of His character. I believe that he loves to use any and everything to get our attention. He also really seems to love the element of surprise. You may need to bear with me a bit.

In case you didn't know, I'm a big fan of "Adult" cartoons. Don't take that word and run with it. I don't mean erotic cartoons, but cartoons directed at an older audience, i.e. The Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons, etc. I just love that an art I enjoyed growing up, has adjusted to my (slightly) more grown-up sense of humor. I really have always had a love for anything that Matt Groening has done. I've been a fan of The Simpsons for as long as I can remember (even though I wasn't always allowed to watch it). Also, more recently, I've really enjoyed Futurama.

I was watching Futurama fairly recently, it was an episode called "Godfellas". In the episode, the robot character named Bender, is shot out of a torpedo tube and forced to float around in space indefinitely. While floating, he makes contact with an asteroid field. One of the asteroids hits him and leaves a film on him, which tiny human-like organisms sprout from. The organisms become civilized and begin to worship Bender as God. Throughout the episode, there are a few expected satirical jokes thrown at religion. Bender chooses a prophet named Malachi to communicate between him and the people and issues "One Commandment" which is "God Needs Booze". Bender begins listening to the prayers of the people, and tries to answer them. Most of the time, inadvertently harming his worshippers.

A small sect of these organisms relocate to Bender's backside and due to their location, he can't hear their prayers. Feeling neglected, the small sect become atheists and start a war with the people around front. Now, this is what caught me. Malachi knows that his demise is imminent, so he cries out, "I will be with you soon, Lord!" To which Bender replies, "But you're with me now."

This was not the first time I had seen this episode, but those two lines of dialogue had never stuck out so much to me before. It seems that so many (too many) believers can get so caught up in "eternity" and the "after-life", that the here and now suffer. There seem to be so many things that Jesus eludes to about living this moment, and TODAY being the day of salvation.

I'm very guilty of this myself. I often tell myself, "someday I'll get on track" or "someday everything will be better" or "at least I know how everything ends". I can't say that these things are bad to tell yourself occasionally, but if these are things that you are repeating to yourself day after day, I think it may be a sign of some deeper issues. I have to realize that I have the ability and the loving support to pick up and change until things are better. I have the ability and loving support to love others until things are better. I have the ability and loving support to pick myself up by the shoelaces and LIVE...TODAY! (You know what the devil's favorite word is? TOMORROW!!!)

At the stone skinny of this, just from watching an episode of Futurama, God met me and told me that whatever I have the desire to change, whatever I have the desire to do, or whatever I feel the need to put down and walk away from, I have everything I need to take the first step. For He and you are with me.