GIVING CREDIT...

There are a few movies which, no matter how many times I watch them, are still fascinating to me. Apollo 13 and Remember the Titans are two such movies. I think it's because each time I watch them, I am reminded of the "behind the scenes" heroes.

In Apollo 13, we see the engineers at NASA working frantically to bring our astronauts home. They are given an impossible task. They are asked to make a square peg fit into a round hole, and they do it. And yet, it is the astronauts that are considered the heroes. Don't get me wrong; those astronauts are definitely heroes. They were working in a dire situation to save each other and themselves. They stretched their expertise and training beyond limits to come home. But most Americans don't know the names of the engineers. I know I wouldn't recognize any.

And then there's Remember the Titans. First let me say that 5 years ago, if anybody had told me I'd be one to use a sports analogy, I'd have said they were out of their tree. But I am in a phase of life (as is every phase of parenting) where you love what your children love. Many scenes in this movie give me chills. I love the scene where the coach takes them on a 3 a.m. run to the civil war cemetery. When they finally arrive at the cemetery and listen to his speech, they finally get it. The team finally starts coming together. I also love the end where they are playing the championship game. In football it seems to me (in my limited understanding of the game) that there are 2 players who get most of the credit. Of course, there is the quarterback. And then there is the running back. Every Saturday during the fall, people are reading about the number of yards passed by a quarterback and the number of yards run by the runnning back to score in the game the night before. And these gifted young men deserve the credit. But what about the young men "on the line" making their jobs easier? What about the young men whose job it is to stop anybody in their way so the running back can score or the quarterback can pass? Do you supposed it's difficult for any of these young men to do such a good job and watch somebody else get credit? At the end of Remember the Titans, we see the final touchdown play. We see the young man running for a touchdown; but in front of him is another young man knocking down anybody who gets in his way. It is the job of the man in front to make a path for the man with the ball, the man who will score and get the credit. Last time I watched this movie (just last weekend) I watched that scene and thought of...well, Life. How nice, I thought, to have somebody running ahead of me through life to knock down anything and anybody that tries to stop me from achieving my goal. And then I was ashamed. Because I have that. I have that in our Lord. And unfortunately, I sometimes fail to give credit where credit is due.