What Moana Taught Me

            When “Moana” came out, I had no desire to see it. Another Disney movie. Big, fat hairy deal.

           

            Then a friend posted a blog titled, “What I Learned from Moana About Trauma.” (https://www.parent.com/moana-taught-trauma/) – Warning, if you read this blog it may make you cry. It did me.

            After reading the blog, I had to watch the movie. Thanks to my wonderful son, we have Netflix, which had “Moana” (I don’t know if it still does). I loved it! I also learned something myself, but not about trauma, although that certainly applies, too.

            The lesson I got was from Moana’s growing up years. She’s the chief’s daughter who’s always drawn to the ocean. The ocean seems to like her, too. Unfortunately, her parents keep pulling her away because beyond the coral reef the ocean is stormy and dangerous. Not long that, as her parents and the villagers kept telling her, they had everything they needed. There was no need to go beyond the coral reef.

            This brings me to what this movie taught me:

            As long as we have everything we need, we’re content. Therefore we stay in our comfort zone. There’s no need to explore or possible improve ourselves or our situation in general. It took an impending disaster to make her people more open to the possibility of going past the reef and even then they were hesitant.

We, the church, are a lot like Moana’s people. As long as our needs are met and our theology is comfortable, we see no reason to change the way we do things. We tend to assume that being covered by  Jesus’ willingness to sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins, we’re fine. No need to do anything more than go to church on Sunday.

            We’ve either forgotten or never been taught that when Jesus came back from the dead, he told his disciples to wait. To pray till His father did something specific.  They did and it happened on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2

            The second thing I realized was that there’s this concept that the blood of Jesus not only covers our sins, but it purifies us, therefore we won’t be judged on judgment day. The Bible says otherwise.

            In Romans 14:10 we read:

But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

            Again in 2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

            The point here is that a lot of Christians I’ve met in recent years seem to think that as long as they’ve accepted God’s priceless gift of salvation, they’re fine. They can go to church on Sundays, live by whatever laws/rules they’re taught and everything’s fine.

            I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s not the whole truth. The biggest truth we’re not taught as Christians in my opinion, is that our relationship with God can go as deep as we want. As deep as we’re willing to allow God into our lives. Salvation in a real sense is the easy part. You could call it getting acquainted with God. It’s a first step in a journey that can last a life time.

            Baptism in the Holy Spirit as described in Acts 2, is the next step. Now, I won’t claim there’s a “sound of rushing wind” every time someone gets baptized in the Holy Spirit, but there is evidence of praying in tongues. I know, you may be thinking that doesn’t apply today. But think about this, in Hebrews 13:8 we read:

Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

            I believe the same applies to God. God doesn’t change, we do. As we grow in Him, our concepts and understanding of who He is changes. That can’t happen however, if we’re stuck back at step one – Salvation.

            God wants more than Salvation for us. He wants to be a friend to us in good times and bad. He doesn’t just want to be a heavenly father we call on in times of trouble and stress. He wants to be someone we talk to everyday. Someone we tell not only our troubles and stress, but the highs and lows of our days. Someone we can say, “Hey Lord, I had a good day today. The sun was shining and nothing seemed to really go wrong today. In fact, I actually got ahead of things at work today. And did you see the cute thing that Rusty my cat, did today? I’m so glad I have You in my life.”

Or, “Lord, I’ve had such a bad day. My alarm didn’t go off. I must have forgotten to turn it on. Then I had a run in my last pair of hose, so I was late for work. I swear my boss was on a rampage today. It wasn’t just me he seemed to be mad at, but everyone. Then that car nearly hit me on the way home. Thankfully, he swerved in time, but that was scary. Ugh! Thanks for listening to me.”

            There’s also the fact that God wants to heal us. I know that when I say “heal us,” most people think of physical healing, such as healing from disease or infirmity. In this case, I’m also talking about healing the wounds of our heart.

            I know most, if not all of us have suffered emotional trauma of some sort in our lives. If you’ve been following my blog, then you know about a significant portion of mine. I haven’t written about all the emotional trauma I’ve suffered, but I plan to in another blog. In this one though, I want to let you know if you don’t already, that God wants to heal the wounds of our hearts, no matter how old they are or how deep they run.

            In Luke 4:18, we read:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

            In this verse Jesus is in the synagogue reading to whoever is there. I’ve done a thorough search for any reference to healing of the brokenhearted and this was all I found. I pondered on it for several days. “Why only this one mention of healing the brokenhearted?”

            I finally asked my roommate as I know he’s done extensive studying of the Bible in addition to having graduated from a now defunct Bible College. He told me it was there because it was important to God. How about that? It’s important to God. Most of us think of healing in only the physical sense, but God sees the need for the wounds of our hearts to be healed and He wants to heal our hearts.

            So, if you’re reading this and you’re Christian, I have a question for you. Are you content where you are or do you want more of God?

            If we look at Revelations 3:20 we read,

            Behold! I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

            It doesn’t say he stops knocking. He keeps knocking on different doors in our hearts. Are we willing to let him all the way into our lives or do we restrict him to the front room that we “keep clean” to show our guests?

            If you want more of God, start talking to him. Read His word for yourself to see what God would say to you. Too many of us take our pastor’s word for things rather than looking them up. I’ve done that in the past.

In 2 Timothy 2:15 we read:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

            That’s a pretty strong hint that we should be reading the Bible for ourselves. It is my hope that this encourages you to seek more of God in your own life.

P.S. All scriptures are from the KJV and the emphasis is mine.