Imagine your friend gives you something for your birthday that you’ve always wanted – a laptop. (Could you imagine that?!)
What would you do with this gift? Well, obviously, you would do your best to value, preserve, and honor the present. You would use it the way it was meant to be used.
Suppose you thanked your friend for the gift then used it to float in your pool. Well, first, it wouldn’t keep you up above the water! Second, you wouldn’t be valuing, preserving, or honoring the present at all! Why? Because you took the gift and misused it.
Life is a Gift
Life is a gift from God. What do we do with a present? We value, preserve, and honor it. And this is what God wants us to do with this precious gift. In fact, it is so crucial to God that we respect life. Because of this, He put in place capital punishment or the death penalty. Genesis 9:5-6 states, "And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."
God requires that any man that kills another must be put to death because he has taken the beautiful gift of life and dishonored it. That’s how important it is to God that we value, preserve, and honor life.
Our Generation
Josh McDowell addresses what I have just said in his article “Movie Mayhem.” * In this article, he put two stories of how teens reacted to two vastly different movies. The first was Schindler’s List. The second, Romeo and Juliet. I’ll let him tell you what happened in his own words.
"The movie Schindler’s List, the story of a German man’s efforts to redeem people from concentration camps during World War II, was shown in a high school. At one point in the movie, the commandant of the concentration camp walks onto a veranda with a rifle. For a moment, he smokes his cigarette and watches the prisoners as they go about their forced labor. Then he raises the scope of the gun to his eye and spies a prisoner who had knelt to tie her shoe. The commandant squeezes the trigger, killing the woman. While the other prisoners quicken the pace of their activities in fear that they will be the next victim, the commandant continues his sport, shooting human beings like ducks in a shooting gallery. As this scene took place, the high school students watching the movie started to laugh.
"Sometime later, in a theater several thousand miles away, an updated version of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was on the screen. Romeo, who has fallen in love with young Juliet, sees one of his friends murdered by Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt. Blinded by rage, Romeo chases Tybalt and - though he (and the whole audience) knows that this act must certainly doom the romance between him and Juliet - he guns down his friend’s murderer. In the midst of what was intended to be a tragic scene, five or six teens in the theater laughed, clapped, and cheered Romeo’s act."
I cannot even begin to describe what I felt when I read this. For the most part, I felt appalled and ashamed. These kids were teens probably around my age – they represent my generation! I felt embarrassment as I realized that my generation cares nothing about life. We see this everywhere around us. Many video games (I’m not saying all.). Disrespect for the elderly. Abortion. My heart aches as I see my peers treat life as if it is nothing.
Aragorn and Faramir
Let’s look at the excellent examples of Aragorn and Faramir from The Lord of the Rings. In one scene from the movie, Théoden, King of Rohan, has been released from an evil spell. Angrily, he takes his sword and lifts it to kill the one responsible for ruining his kingdom, Wormtongue. Distraught at the actions of the king, Aragorn, a loyal and brave man, runs to Théoden and grabs his hand, yelling, “No, my lord – let him go. Enough blood has been spilled on his account.” Though Aragorn despises Wormtongue as much as Théoden does, he reaches out his hand to help him stand.
Aragorn values life. Understanding that Théoden would be killing Wormtongue in anger and haste, he held back the king’s hand. He preserved the life of one who deserved not to live. By reaching out his hand to lift Wormtongue up, Aragorn was honoring the man’s life.
Let’s move forward to another scene. Faramir, the son of the steward of Gondor, has led an attack on the enemy. One of the foes has fallen dead upon the ground. Faramir walks up to the corpse, turns it over to see the face, and declares, "His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is... where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all."
Even through war, Faramir valued life. He studied the face of the enemy and hated the fact that he must, through battle, destroy life. Faramir honored the lives of others - even if they were the enemy. Now, I’m not saying war isn’t necessary. Neither is Faramir. What Faramir did was never lose focus on the fact that life is valuable.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, ESV)
Life is precious because God made us in his image and breathed life into us.
Whether it is an unborn baby or the person on their death bed taking their last breath, we should do our best to value, preserve, and honor life. Why? Because it is a gift from God.
Comment below and let me know how you think we can, as Christians, value, preserve, and honor life!
*If you would like to see the article in its entirety, here’s the link: https://www.josh.org/daily-devo/movie-mayhem-3/