Now I don't do movie reviews, and I sure don't recommend movies. But I laugh just hearing about this Bill Murray movie called "Groundhog Day." I understand that it's a pretty popular video rental. It's about this TV weatherman who goes to Punxsutawney, PA - the hometown of the famous ground hog - to broadcast that fairly goofy American tradition. We're supposed to be able to predict whether or not there will be six more weeks of winter weather based on whether or not the ground hog sees his shadow on February 2nd. But that's not the point of the movie. The weatherman, who has a serious attitude problem, wakes up at 6:00 A.M. the next day, only to experience exactly the same events he did the day before. And every new morning, the clock radio goes off at 6:00 A.M. and awakens him to the same old song - "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher. And day after day, he sees the same people, he experiences the same relationships, the same places, the same rhythm - even down to the guy in the diner dropping a plate the same time each day. It just about drives him mad - experiencing the same day over and over again.
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about "When Every Day's The Same."
The plot of the movie is fantasy. The plight of having the same day over and over again is reality for a lot of people. In some ways, it may describe how your life feels right now.
Life has taken on a monotonous sameness - a predictability. It seems like no matter what happens, or who happens, you have the feeling of "been there, done that." Maybe your life seems to be suffering from a meaning deficit.
Actually, life was never meant to be monotonous. After all, your life was given to you by a God who creates blazing sunsets and fall colors, people with fingerprints that are like on one else's ever born, quasars and comets and supernovas. Now would a Creator with that kind of creativity create us to have days that all seem the same? The only reason life would be like that is if we are, in reality, trying to live without our Creator.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, steps into our hunger for something more meaningful, more colorful when He gives us our word for today from the Word of God, John 10:10. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Now obviously, Jesus isn't talking about life in the sense of eating, breathing, and existing. We already have that kind of life. He's talking about life that's fulfilling, challenging, and satisfying. Life to the full.
We don't have life like that because we don't have the Life-Giver. According to God's Book, the Bible, you and I have, in fact, taken our life out of our Creator's hands and put it in our own. It's called sin in the Bible - and "I" is the middle letter. So we are in God's words, "without hope and without God " (Ephesians 2:12). It all seems so empty, everyone else seems as trapped in meaninglessness as you do, there seems to be no hope.
Until you let Jesus Christ reconnect you to the God you've sinned against. Jesus died on the cross to pay for the sin that separates us from God. And when you put your trust in Jesus Christ to take down the wall between you and God, He infuses your days with a sense of meaning and destiny. Each day, you are discovering a little more of who you were born to be. And while your environment may be pretty much the same every day, your "invironment" - what's in you - is experiencing ever new experiences of God's love, God's joy, God making a difference in your life, God making a difference through your life.
Now, if you want to begin this life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ, tell Him that right where you are. And I'd like to send you the booklet I wrote about how to have this relationship - it's called Yours For Life. Just let me know you want Jesus in your life.
Your life was never meant to be this small. There is something so much bigger - days where you are finally experiencing the One you were created by - the One you were created for.