The Natural?

So, here’s another random post. Long story short I’m not on the Cape, so I’ve got some down time to write. I just finished reading The Natural, it is one of my favorite movies so I thought why not read the book. Another long story short, the movie is nothing like the book. The Roy Hobbs in the movie is brave, courageous, forgiving, and selfless. The Roy Hobbs of the book is selfish, angry, resentful, and a womanizer. He even took the judge’s money and fixed the game by striking out to end it! My first thought was that I liked the movie better. Then my second was that they set up an interesting contrast, and because everything in my life goes back to God, here we go. Roy Hobbs (book) is a real character, while Roy Hobbs (movie) isn’t (aren’t all Hollywood movies like that?). The Roy Hobbs of the book shows us that no matter your talent, fame, or fortune, without God you are nothing. Sounds harsh right, but it’s true. Roy loses it all, fame, glory, love, only to realize at the end he is alone. Roy had it all, but lost it all when he let greed instead of God take over. In church today we talked about the parable Jesus told of the guy with the vineyard who paid everyone equally despite the fact they worked different hours (imagine working 12 hours to make the same amount a guy worked 2 hours for). Anyway the thing is this, the guy who worked all day was asking for justice, well if God were to give us all justice we certainly wouldn’t be going to Heaven. Wait, Tay Tay say what? That’s right, if God were to give me justice no way could I stand before Him deserving Heaven, it is by His grace that I am allowed in. Without God we aren’t much, I’m just another kid from Boston trying to make sense of the world, but with Him we can be extraordinary, a creation with a relationship and purpose from the Creator.  Maybe the book wasn’t that bad, the reason we didn’t like it was because it acted as a mirror upon ourselves.