Now, before I say anything else, I just want to express how hilarious this film is and if you haven't seen it then you should. We had a really great time and laughed the whole way through. Something else interesting about the minions, before I move on, is that watching the film as someone who is bilingual is really interesting and funny because it turns out- after researching a bit before writing this- the minion language, or "minionese" is a hilarious mix of lots of different languages, so when we rewatched the film again last week but this time in English, it was really funny to still hear the minions saying things in Spanish.
(P.S Check this out. Have fun and you're welcome: http://minionstranslator.com/ )
Now to the point!
If you haven't seen the film yet, the whole plot is built around the fact that, from the beginning of their existence, the minions have always had a bad-guy boss, and their whole life purpose is built around this need to serve a boss. However, managing not to kill their boss off proves a challenge and, after one of these unfortunate incidents, the minions find refuge in a giant ice cave and for a while enjoy safety and happiness inside the cave having all sorts of fun for themselves. But the fun only lasts so long and soon the minions find themselves depressed and unfulfilled.
Cue our hero: Kevin.
Kevin courageously comes up with a plan, to leave the cave in search of a boss and not return until he has done so. And I won't give away anymore for those of you who haven't seen it!
After watching it the second time, I realised that we men and women aren't actually that different from the minions. We too, whether you've realised it or not, have this in-built purpose in our make up. As human beings, we feel this need to serve something or someone, to dedicate ourselves to a particular cause; to find purpose for our lives. Whether it's religion, charity work, a football team, a job, furthering our education, family, children, finding love... the list goes on.
But the point is none of these things really bring us true, lasting fulfilment. There is always something missing.
We're always telling ourselves, "I'll be happy when...":
I'll be happy once I'm popular; I'll be happy when I'm studying what I want to at university; I'll be happy when I have my dream job; I'll be happy when I find the love of my dreams; I'll be happy once we have our dream house; I'll be happy when we have children; I'll be happy when we have a better car; I'll be happy when I get a raise at work; I'll be happy once this problem goes away; I'll be happy after the divorce; I'll be happy when I can retire; I'll be happy when... I'll be happy when...
And it's because we know that there's something missing. Except we look for it and think we'll find it in all the wrong places.
God created us with the purpose of being in relationship with Him and bringing glory to Him. It's at the very core of every one of us. Except that, because of sin, we are now incapable of fulfilling that purpose. Sin is everything that goes against the very character of who God is, and so because we have become sinful beings, compelled to do all of things that offend God and go against His character and His design for us and this world, we are separated and cut off from God, unable to either to be in relationship with Him or live in a way that pleases and glorifies Him.
We are no longer able to fulfill the very purpose for which we were created.
And so we go off, searching for things in which we'll find fulfilment and maybe we do find it- for a while. But sooner or later we discover that these things or people don't live up to the high expectations that we had and, like the minions when they tried living outside of their purpose, we find ourselves disappointed and unsatisfied. But it wasn't meant to be this way.
God loves us so much, and so longs for us to be able to fulfil that original purpose, to be in a loving Father-Child relationship with Him, that He formed the most scandelous and epic rescue plan to save us from our sin and build a bridge over the deep chasm that sin created between us and enable us to fulfil our true purpose: God Himself, the Almighty Self-Sufficient Creator of all the vast universe, humbled Himself to come to earth as a man to serve us, imperfect, fickle and hopelessly helpless human beings, and to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice in our place and pay the price that our sin demands: death. It was a plan so shocking, that even the Jewish Religous leaders, seeing it all happen before their eyes, didn't believe it, even though their scriptures predicted every single detail of it! Even when Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death once and for all, they weren't willing to believe it.
All we need to do, is want it. You see, the religous leaders didn't want to believe it, because believing it would mean leaving all they knew behind, including their self-made God of religion and rules and the power that came with it. They had become "minions" to their selfishness and desire for power. Namely, their sin. And they weren't willing to leave it behind to believe in Jesus, their Saviour.
We have that same choice today.
God has made a way for us to be free, to live life in abundance, in a loving, fulfilling, satisfying relationship with Him, but in order to have that we must choose to leave our old life, our old gods, and our old boss- sin- behind. You see, the Bible talks about how we make ourselves slaves (or "minions" in this case) of the one whom we obey. We have the choice of being minions to sin, which leads to death, or of being minions to obedience which leads to righteousness. You cannot choose both. Jesus died and rose again to free us from sin, and so to accept Him we must want to be saved from that sin. Relating it to the minions, they had to want to leave the cave; they couldn't serve the new boss that Kevin was going to find unless they left the cave first.
This "cave-life", living as minions to our own desires and sin doesn't offer us satisfaction. It's not what we were designed and created for. We were designed to serve and bring glory to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, Creator of heaven and earth, the God who is love, grace and mercy, ready to receive whoever would call upon the name of Jesus for salvation. It might feel good now, in the temporary, but all sin does is entrap us, deceive us, destroy our lives and rob us of the joy that we could have in Christ Jesus.
The time is now. None of us knows when our time here is up. Don't leave this offer of salvation and life on the table.
To whoever is reading this, wherever you are in this world, whatever situation you find yourself in, God is good and He loves you. When you were His enemy, slandering Him, rejecting Him, sinning against Him, in the very worst moment of your life He loved you enough to die for you. Don't just walk away from that.
Also, I love you too. And I love my God. It is because of that, because of the relationship that I have with Him that I can love others too, and need to share what He has done in me and declare His gospel- the Good News- that there is a God who, despite our rejection of Him, loves us and made a way for us to be with Him forever.
Passages of the Bible referred to (extra reading!):
Romans, chapter 6, verses 15-23
Romans, chapter 5, verses 6-11
The Gospel of John, chapter 10, verses 9-10
The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 9-13
Isaiah, chapter 55, verses 6-7
