Ground Hog Day

Sure, everybody has one. Some people have a couple. Many people don’t remember what it was, and may even deny having one, but we all do have one. I’m talking about a favorite movie. Every once in a while, however, a film comes along that rocks you to your very core. It changes your life and marks a turning point for you where you can look back and point to that cinematic experience as “the moment” when you recieved the revelation that we all require in order to understand the nuances of life. It does’nt have to be a movie, of course, but it is an undeniable event.

For me it was Ground Hog Day. No really. It was literally the date on the calendar we all refer to as Ground Hog Day. I had the day off for some unknown reason and a televison station was running a Ground Hog Day marathon. I was alone at home, again for some unknown reason, and decided to watch the movie. That’s right. The movie titled, “Ground Hog Day” with Bill Murray. I had watched the movie years prior and just figured it was about a guy and girl falling in love. Big deal. As I watched it this time around I realized there was so much more being communicated here. For those of you who have’nt seen it, Murray’s character is a news reporter sent to cover the rodent coming out of the cage to see his shadow, blah blah blah. He wants to date the producer. She has higher aspirations because Murray plays a womanizing pervert. The story line is that Murray miraculously relives Ground Hog Day over and over and over and…well you get the picture. After several unsuccessful attempts to seduce the fair lady he attempts to learn what she likes in a man and then pretend to be him. Understand that the other characters are not reliving the same day over and over. Only Murray’s character is. So that gives him 24 hours to get the girl, so to speak. The next day will be Ground Hog Day all over again and she will have forgotton all about his charms. He succeeds in learning the secret to her heart and almost wins the lady but, alas, she sees through it in the end. Eventually he decides he has had enough of Ground Hog Day and decides to kill himself…to no avail. It can not be done.

He decides he would use his time in Ground Hog Day purgatory to learn to do all the things he said he could do before but really could’nt. He becomes a classical pianist; a doctor; and so on. After he, with proper motives, finally BECOMES the man of the woman’s dreams, then the woman is finally able to give herself to him.

The moral of the story is there are too many fakes out there. I used to be one. I must confess that after watching this movie all those years ago I made a concious decision to become all that God intended me to be. There are too many talkers out there. The Bible says the Kingdom of God is not of talk but of power. Who are you, really? I mean really? Right where the rubber meets the road! Are you really who you claim to be? It will all be revealed in time. Are you ready for it?