renewing our minds

I watched Matrix on TV last Monday evening for the third time. Just before the movie came on, i had told hubby that i did not want to watch it as i had watched it twice already.

I'm not really one who would remember a plot of any movie in great detail. Usually as i watched a movie the second time around, i would just vaguely remember yes this did happen, not being one who would anticipate what is going to happen, at least not for all the scenes, unless it made a great impact on me.

Anyway, somehow as the movie came on, i changed my mind. And third time round, i understood the movie better, having seen the sequels.

I also saw strong parallels between our life in the spirit, or our walk in God, and Neo's induction into the Matrix, as he discovered of the elaborate facade set up by artificial intelligence, and the revelation he received through his various encounters and observations (without taking into consideration the even stronger parallels with new age-ism).

Two things struck me:

1. Training was required, and Neo had to learn how the matrix works and what to watch out for. Although he was gifted, he still had to develop his inherent abilities. The results he achieved does not seem to commensurate with the effort he put in. In other words, his effort yielded much more results. This is likened to God's grace and gift in us, so that as we work with our heavenly Father, being rooted and established in Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can achieve so much more.
2. Towards the end of the movie, when Neo finally sees things as they really are, he, as predicted earlier by Morpheus, did not need to dodge bullets anymore. Instead, he stopped them in mid-air, as the bullets hurled towards him, plucked one from mid-air, as if to demonstrate his new-found awareness, and the rest of the tiny missiles, now rendered useless, just fell to the ground. He had renewed his mind, no longer allowing his old perceptions to trouble him (as they first did, when he struggled to make sense of the deception, even delusion he had been living in), no longer immersed in his previous habitual worldview and orientation. He saw the truth and reality of the situation: the men and their powerful weapons were merely codes. In the same way, we need to, as believers, to see God for who He is, ourselves for who we really are, and our situations for what they really are. These are contained in the Word of God. Only then will we have victory as promised in the Word.