part 3 of “At The Movies”
In this post, we are going to be looking at the movie Back To The Future. I have seen this movie probably 3,457,320 times. I’ve seen it a lot. But what I saw in this movie the most recent time I watched it was something that I had never seen before. God showed me something amazing and I want to share it with you.
The movie follows Marty McFly and his quest to get back to the future. Marty is friends with an older gentleman named Emmett Brown whom he calls “Doc”. Marty stops by Doc’s house to play the guitar before school and Doc calls him and asks him to come to the mall at 1:15am. Doc explains that he has something to show Marty and may need his assistance. When Marty gets to the mall, Doc reveals his latest invention - the time machine. Doc begins to explain how it works and runs a test with his dog. After that, he begins to tell Marty that he’s getting ready to embark on a journey into the future. As Doc says some final words to Marty, a group of men, whom Doc stole the plutonium from to power his time machine, shoot Doc, and Marty flees in the time machine.
Marty ends up traveling to 1955. Marty begins looking for Doc who is alive at that time. He finds Doc, but Doc has a hard time believing what Marty is saying to him. Marty is finally able to convince Doc who decides to help him get back to the future.
They make a plan based on Marty’s knowledge of a storm that is going to happen. Marty tells Doc that, during the storm, a lightning bolt is going to strike the clock tower in town. The night comes for the storm and everything is all planned out and Doc tells Marty that he has calculated everything down to the moment the lightning strikes the tower. As they are talking, a branch falls from the tree and knocks one of the cables loose. Doc goes to the top clock tower, throws a rope down, and Marty ties the cable to the rope. Doc pulls the rope up and yells for Marty to get going.
Marty drives down the road and gets to the starting line Doc told him about. As he is sitting there waiting for the alarm to go off, the car dies. Marty frantically tried to start the car. As he is trying to get the car started, the alarm goes off. Marty begins to panic and hits the steering wheel and the car starts. He hits the gas and speeds off toward the clock tower. As he approaches the clock tower, he notices Doc struggling with the cable. The lightning strikes the tower just as Doc gets the cable to connect and Marty is sent back to the future. He is reunited with Doc in 1985, whom he had written a letter to warn him that he was going to be shot. Doc takes Marty home and travels off into the future.
Now, what God showed me in this movie that I had never seen before. In the final 1955 scene, we see that Doc has everything planned out. He and Marty have gone over the plan many times and even briefly go over it again at the clock tower. Then all of the stuff happens. The tree branch falls on the cable and the car stalls. These two events cause panic and anger because they are not a part of the plan. But then everything works out in the end. Why? Because Doc was wrong in his calculations. If everything would have gone to plan, Marty would have been early by seconds or even minutes.
This made me think about plans and timing. This also made me think about God’s timing. We make plans. We have thoughts out of our life. We plan our vacations. We plan how we want our career to evolve in a year or 5 years. We plan to graduate college by a certain time. We plan to get married by a certain time. We plan to have a certain number of children. Where we are financially now and where we could be in year or 5 years. We make plans. But then something happens that causes a ripple that changes everything.
The car breaks down and delays vacation causing plans to change and missing out on some of the planned events of the vacation. The company you have been working hard for and doing all that you can to get that promotion gives the promotion to someone else or you lose that job after years of working for them throwing off your career plan and your financial plans. College is going along just fine, but then you hit a rough patch, get behind, fail a course that you need to retake, and that throws off all your plans. You already wanted to be married, but you haven’t met anyone yet, and now you’re behind with your plan to have kids. What a mess!
All of the changes that can come to our plans cause us to become frustrated and angry at ourselves for not being able to succeed at them. We also get mad and frustrated with God. I want to share one of my favorite verses with you:
“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” - Jeremiah 29:11 MSG
This might be my favorite verse but I also feel it can lead to some of my frustration when things don’t go as planned. When things don’t go my way or the way that I have it planned, I get mad and say “thought you had it all planned out God. Thought you were going to take care of me! How is the situation I’m in helping me or taking care of me?” I know you have felt this way too.
But here is something interesting to think about - what if it’s our plans that are bad? In the case of Marty and Doc, their plans were wrong. What if the plans we have are going to end badly for us, so God steps in for the good? God has ordered our steps (Proverbs 16:9). God has been where we haven’t been yet. He knows the outcome of what we call plans. So maybe we shouldn’t get frustrated with God after all because it is quite possible we get frustrated because we don’t trust God. Proverbs 3:5-6 says:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” - Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
We depend on our own understanding. This was the plan! This is the way it’s supposed to go! When we depend on our own understanding, we get frustrated, annoyed, and mad at God. But when we trust God and know for certain that He has our best interest in mind, we will see what path (plans) to take and we will really see what God is doing. God has perfect timing.
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