I recently watched the Lion King with my girlfriend. Not only was it was a fun reminder of my childhood, there was also a very important scene in it which directly ties into this post which I’ve been planning to write for some time. A good friend of mine once told me that God only gives one message to each of his children which He designed for us to preach throughout our entire lives. After months of pondering what that meant, I realized one day that not only was he absolutely right, but also that I’ve known for years what my message was supposed to be. As I said in a previous post, I believe that message can be summed up in the one-word command, “remember.”

In the movie the Lion King, Simba experiences a terrible tragedy with the loss of his father. Worse still, his evil uncle Scar convinces him that it’s HIS fault Mufasa died, and that he should never return to Pride Rock because of his shameful act. Simba spends his adult years drifting, keeping company with a strange meerkat and warthog, until along comes his childhood friend Nala. Upon recognizing each other, Nala demands that he return to Pride Rock to challenge Scar’s tyrannical rule of the kingdom and reclaim his right to the throne. Simba refuses, believing his earlier actions have left him beyond redemption… until a chance encounter with a wise old monkey causes him to change his mind and return to reclaim his birthright to the throne.

Ever since I was a child, my dad has had the above plaque hanging in our house, which contains the Dudley family coat of arms. The latin family motto inscribed at the bottom reads “Nec gladio, nec arcu.” I took it upon myself one day as a teenager to translate it from Latin, and discovered it means, “Neither Sword Nor Bow.” For the longest time I had no idea what that meant (were we supposed to be pacifists or something?), until one day I was reading the Bible and came across Psalm 44:4-8 (above).


Spending time with my grandmother (my dad’s mom) this Christmas was a good reminder to me of some of my family’s personal history. She’s been into family genealogy research for many years now, and because I’m something of a history nerd, I’ve actually found a lot of her research very interesting. We can trace our family line back through the Civil War, where some of our relatives were buried north of Atlanta, through to Thomas Dudley, one of the governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony,  all the way to pre-Elizabethan England, where Dudley Castle was owned by several prominent nobles, notably John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, who led an unsuccessful attempt to install Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England. Even though you’re probably yawning about these people, to me understanding where my family comes from gives me a special sense of purpose, and helps me see that I’m just one tiny link in a generations-long chain of people which will continue to extend for centuries after I’m gone.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the frequency with which Christians who are “on fire for God” do stupid and sinful things (I include myself in this indictment, so don’t get defensive). Although most of us claim to have a saving faith in Jesus Christ, and show many outward signs of the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we all find ourselves time and again falling into old habits and traps that have caught us a thousand times. Even highly popular and respected Christian leaders have at times been exposed to grueling ridicule as their private failures revealed them to be no better than the “sinners” whom they seek to tame.

Explanation unnecessary.