I recently watched the movie Warrior, about two estranged brothers who both entered professional mixed martial arts competitions. Each made their way through each of their components to the top of the competition. Each were talented, yet each were driven by something greater than themself.
They had grown up with an abusive, alcoholic father, and each had to reconcile their feelings towards that. The younger adopted bitterness and rage, hating the world and everyone in it. He abandoned the military in the heat of war, and lived in guilt of that too. Filled with bitterness and guilt, the younger took out his aggression in the ring against any opponent. More than strength itself, rage drove him. Nothing kept him from brutally beating up each man he encountered. His attitude seemed to say, "No one, and no thing, can ever break me" ... Though you almost sense a defiance, a desperation, that someone would.
The older didn't talk with his father, but still had forgiven him, and raised a family of his own. Financial hardship in paying his mortgage and daughter's medical bills made him desperate for money and he entered the fighting ring too. The need to care for his family drove him. Though far behind all of his competitors, he managed to find the strength to beat each one of them.
In the end, the two brothers faced each other in the ring. The older looked in compassion at his younger brother, the younger exuded a mix of cold contempt with hateful rage. The younger could care less what damage he did to the older, could care less about anything. The older could not bear to hurt his brother, but knew that only strength could break him.
As the two fought, the audience is drawn into every emotion felt by either brother. At the end of the last determining round, the older brother held the younger in an excruciating, painful lock. The younger brother's shoulder was broken, yet he would not give up. His emotional guilt pained him more than any physical hurt. Though the older brother was near tears to hurt his younger brother so much, he would not give up. "I love you," he yelled above the noise, as he held even harder. In the dramatic scene, the younger brother taps the ground three times to indicate defeat, surrender.
The better man won. The weaker, masquerading in a wall of bitterness, was broken. And yet, the younger looked in awe at his older brother. There was someone better than him. And his soul had secretly hoped there was. Amidst the sweat and blood, an unspoken love and admiration was felt. There was a better man.
Even from a female perspective, that movie moved me. So that I can be a good wife and mother someday, I love learning about how God created each men and women in their unique ways.
Sometimes I meet men that have so much confidence, and in the past, have interpreted that as condescending, rude, and even prideful. But lately, I've wondered at how I've been so wrong.
Maybe the man I've accused of thinking himself so much better than other men, IS better than many. Maybe I have masqueraded a self-degrading denial of being good at anything as humility and eagerness to grow... maybe because I am female, or had many interactions with proud Christians, or have experienced faulty teaching on humility. But I now find myself corrected. Perhaps this man's self-assessment is more accurate than mine, and it is really pride in me that condemns those who assess themselves positively. It is embarrassing to admit, but I think true.
Maybe I can conclude, with authority, that those who seek God with all their heart are better off than those who don't. That those who work hard are better, in some sense, than those who don't. That those who choose right, choose better, are better, than those who choose wrong. That the man who protects and loves is better than the man who cheats, uses, and abuses.
Have I perhaps been unknowingly influenced by a certain worldview into believing that we are all essentially the same, and all of our works mean nothing? I don't know.
Certainly, my works don't contribute to salvation, but can works mean something? Perhaps. Maybe more than perhaps. I stand corrected.
And it is kinda nice to be corrected. Though slightly humbling, I think my soul really wants to know I don't know it all. I, too, would like to know there is strength and wisdom beyond what I can grasp. I like knowing that I can be mistaken, broken. And ... I kinda like knowing that there is a person, a man, who is quite good. Not perfectly, not inherently, but certainly better than most.
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