Perspective and Stress

I recently watched “Crash”, the movie, by Paul Haggis. The film is loaded with questions of integrity (although on the cover it’s about racial discrimination and misunderstandings between ethnicities) – some of it hit home and is painful to admit about myself.

For all that to happen at once is unrealistic. But, the film makes valid points:
- everyone (I hope not) has a selling point;
- that selling point might come after making an honest mistake;
- forgiveness is difficult and true love hurts;
- small (or large) acts of kindness / trust / truth-speaking heal people;
- you reap what you sow;
- humans have the power to corrupt and the susceptibility to be corrupted
- by and large people think mainly of themselves – to quote a friend, “fine friends are few” – am I a friend to others?;
- your past can haunt your present;
- anger is a dangerous thing;
- your past and recent experiences color your current perception of reality (and can make you impatient and irrational) – this is especially true of experiences that confront or attack your core;
- some experiences defy logic and are life changing;
- the other side of anger and fear is recognition of how far you had traveled down the irrational road;
- self control is difficult;
- everyone has a breaking point
- appearances do matter;
- admitting mistakes is difficult; it is a risk some are unwilling to take
- even the Just and Courageous sin greatly;
- repentance does not come easy – sometimes it takes a real butt kicking or a shell-shocking experience;
- standing up for yourself and others has it’s place;
- life is tough, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and everybody’s human.

As Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

A biblical proverb says that a man of understanding is slow to anger. I know that’s true, but there were lots of things that happened in that movie that could send people past their breaking point, especially if stressful situations were stacking up. I’m not justifying it. I’m guilty of it myself.

Sometimes you just don’t know how stressed you really are until pondering your actions / decisions in retrospect. That’s a dangerous place to be. God protects if you let Him (and often in His mercy, in spite of you). God is good.

The Bible also says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Hope is a God thing.