Skylar's Blog & Podcast

James 1:2

Note: Harry Potter is a fiction book, and our church has no ties with any sort of witchcraft or black magic, nor do we support such things. However, there are principles in J.K. Rowling's writing that lends itself to Christian thinking. If you are upset by this blog please notify me.

Where my Harry Potter fans at?! Some of you might not have the maturity to enjoy the Harry Potter series, and because of this I am sad, but as for the rest of you well-mannered, grown up, goal oriented guys and girls you will be able to relate with what I'm about to talk about (by the way I was just kidding about the characteristics of Harry Potter fans, we're not all well-mannered). Harry Potter is a wizard born into very difficult circumstances. Even before he is able to put a word together the entire wizarding world knows his name and his story. Can you begin to imagine the pressure he had to experience after he found out who he was and what everyone was expecting of him? Then, as if the day to day pressures of being the child who saved the wizarding world wasn't enough, the dark wizard who had almost killed him comes back to life and makes it clear he wants his revenge. Harry Potter is a fiction book, it's a made up world, but within this world Rowling paints an interesting picture of a boy who seems to have the odds stacked against him. Have you ever felt like this? Do you have days when you get out bed and it feels like the world is out to get you? How about those days when it seems like everything is going wrong, do you have those?

James (the writer of the book of James ; ) starts out his letter with the statement I wrote above. I want you to notice one word, a word that has always stuck out to me, it's the word "when." Why is that word so important? Because of the phrase that comes after it: "you face trials of many kinds..." Notice he doesn't say, "if", "it's possible that", or "you may want to look out for." He says: "when". What do you think this means? Personally, I think it means we, like Harry Potter, are destined for some hard times. Now, my purpose in writing this isn't to paint this dramatic picture of being a Christian, in all honesty I'm just being realistic. Hopefully, you all acknowledge the existence of Satan, and his desire to pull you from God. On top of that, you hopefully know the culture we live in doesn't promote the same morals and values we do. Because of this, whether we want to admit it or not, we're living in a world where the odds are slightly stacked against us. Life is not always cheery and happy. We all have doubts, we have questions, we grieve, we feel alone, we don't always believe God is there with us, and we definitely don't always trust God. In my experience, it sometimes feels like this life's sole purpose is find some way of creating a wedge between God and me. I am not saying we should be hopeless, if anything Christians should be the most hopeful of any group of people. We have the sovereign God of the universe working for us and loving us. However, I am asking all of us to take a hard look at life and come to a point where we know bad things will happen, but after we understand this we look to God and put our hope in the day where bad things will never happen again. The point of being realistic isn't to find some way to cope within ourselves. The point of being realistic is understanding there is nothing in this world we can place our whole hope in, instead we must look outside this world to our God and Savior and put our whole hope in Him and in the day He comes back and rescues us for forever.