Christianity and the Karate Kid

Postlude [April 11, 2006]

If being a Christian is nothing more than conforming to a certain way of being human, then count me out. If it’s just another “quick-and-easy” approach to making life continually happy, I’d rather take Prozac. Bottom line, if it’s about being assimilated like some Borg on Star Trek, then I’m going to spend my life and my time doing anything BUT being a Christian.

Have you ever felt this way?

Have you ever tried to answer the question: WHY, you feel this way?
Why is there some sort of natural aversion to quick-and-easy Christianity?

In order to have you tracking with me, add some of these other (slightly random) questions to your mental arsenal...

• Why did most of us enjoy the first Karate Kid movie and not the sequels?
• For that matter, why is it that we (generally speaking) don’t enjoy sequels to ANY movie?
• Lastly, are you NOT thankful that they didn’t make a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2”? I am. ☺

If you have no connection with the 80’s, I apologize for losing you in that last wave of nostalgic questions. Seriously…past any joking, why, do we feel this natural aversion to a quick-and-easy, conforming, homogenous, sequel-esque, Christianity?

It’s simple. It’s all in the difference between formula and story.

Each one of us could relate and connect with one or more of the characters in the movie Karate Kid – whether it was Daniel, Mr. Miyagi or Ali – and we found ourselves excited about the idea that someone could achieve their dreams. Karate Kid and its story, like many others, connected with our soul and thus became a hit movie. Hollywood film companies know this formula all to well and capitalize on it. Thus, they created the sequels Karate Kid II and Karate Kid III.

Most of us probably went to see Karate Kid II because the story of the original movie left us wanting to know more; more about Daniel, Ali, Mr. Miyagi and even some of the guys in the Cobra Kai. Whether the movie did well at the box office or not isn’t the true litmus test, that comes with Karate Kid III. It’s as if we had never heard the age-old rule “once bitten, twice shy”. Somehow we know better and yet we fall for the movie sequel time and time again – unfortunately, many of us also fall for this same sequel-esque, formulized Christianity. We end up buying the formula and by default, not buying into the story.

“Formula” Christianity can sound like this:
• Read “my” book and get your life together.
• Listen to “my” CD and it will change your life.
• Buy “my” package for 3 monthly payments and watch the transformation happen!

Trust me, the only reason I can write this, is because at one point in my life I bought this stuff, read it and I actually tried to implement the techniques into my life. It only made me more frustrated. Beyond that, I felt more and more guilty because I didn’t think I would ever really “conform to the image of Christ”.

I was more concerned with doing the formula for success in my faith than learning more about being a part of God’s story of redemption or for that matter, learn about MY story. Christianity had become a religion and not a relationship. I had inadvertently traded a unique relationship with Jesus, for a checklist of right and wrong things to do.

It wasn’t until I began reading ‘other’ books that I realized what I had been missing. These ‘other’ books were less about what to do, and more about who God had always intended for me to become. The idea that God valued ME – not for who I could make myself into through religious regiment, but as the person He had already designed me to be in Heaven – and as He was writing my story, He was revealing my part in His story.

Christianity moved from a formula on how to be a better human, to an active and daily story about being a new human. I’ve heard some say that being a Christian is to embrace the ultimate of being human. Even while writing this, I get a rush of adrenaline similar to when Daniel pulled out the ‘crane’ position to defeat Johnny from the Cobra Kai (in the original Karate Kid). ☺

As we ask God to reveal to us our story, we will begin to see His activity in our lives all along: whether near or far away from Him. We will see a Father who has been longing for the return of His son or daughter. As the story unfolds, we will find hope in our past, not shame – and THAT hope will give us wisdom to begin the walking in our future, now. All that you and I have to share with others in this life is our story and in affect, that’s God’s story. I challenge you to begin living a life of story rather than formula.