It’s a Wrap—168 Hour Film Project

By Dianne E. Butts –

Well, the film production week I talked about in my last two articles came and went in a whirlwind. We put our film in the overnight mail fifteen minutes before the deadline on February 24th, had a wrap party that evening, and the last of the film crew left the next day. It was an exhausting, exhilarating experience.

The Bible verses we were assigned that we were to illuminate in our movie were Genesis 9:8-10, which talk about God making a covenant with Noah never to destroy the earth by flood again. Following verses speak of the sign of the covenant—the rainbow. It seemed a very challenging verse to portray in a story about motorcyclists and Colorado mountains, but then I’d bet every 168 Team thought their verse was challenging too.

We got some awesome locations, including a ranch with Colorado’s beautiful Sangre de Cristo mountain range in the background. We gave God credit for that set design.

Unfortunately, for all our planning and praying, things did not go off without a hitch. The wind blew for most of our outdoor scenes which made for big challenges with the sound. I learned they can do a lot of magic in post production, but they can’t fix everything.

We had a team of writers which became a challenge. I learned not all writers have the same priorities! My focus was creating a story that illuminated our Bible verse. I felt the Sangre de Cristo (“Blood of Christ”) mountains were our rainbow rising in the sky. But others were concerned about my overt Christianity coming off cheesy. Still others were concerned with story tension and character motivation. With the pressure of the time constraints of 168 hours, I never felt we had a great script, but others felt we had a strong story.

We also had different perspectives on filming, with different things being important to different people. The director focused on how the movie would look—the use of color and light. In the opening shot, our character walks from darkness into light—very symbolic. No bright colors showed in the film until the final scene to depict life.

I imagine challenges aren’t unique to our film experience, and even learning that is profitable.

With the problems we experienced I doubt we’ll be in the running for any awards, but was that really the point? Of course you always want to come out with an awesome finished product, but when that doesn’t happen, what then?

Well, I learned a ton doing this project: about the production side of film making, about working with other people, and about how I need to stand strong for what is important to me. (I had to fight to keep the scenes and dialog lines about the Sangre de Cristos and the flood.)

At least one crew member wondered why things weren’t going well. After all, she said, we’re doing this for God. Well, don’t we tend to think just because we set out to do something great for God that we’re not going to run into difficulties? Jesus set out to do something great for God. He did everything right. And He ended up nailed to a cross.

In the end, it was a good experience. We touched many lives as we set out to make this Christian film based on God’s Word. Many people got opportunities they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and I met people I otherwise never would have met. I hope we made a good impression that glorified God. For me, that’s what it was all about in the first place.

Dianne’s 168 Hour Film Project, titled “Steel City,” premiered at the 168 Film Festival in Los Angeles March 31 – April 2. Dianne is the author of the newly released book, Deliver Me: Hope, Help, & Healing through True Stories of Unplanned Pregnancy (www.DeliverMeBook.com). When she’s not writing, she enjoys riding her motorcycle with her husband, Hal, and gardening with her cat, P.C. in Colorado. www.DianneEButts.com

Distractions Versus Intensity Workouts

By Don Otis –

The 30-something-year-old woman on the elliptical trainer next to me was reading a magazine. Just down the row, another woman was having a loud cell phone conversation with a friend.  Still another was signing loudly to the song on her iPod. Fortunately, she had a beautiful voice but she was oblivious. The use of technology to divert our attention from the rigors of exercise, or to at least make it more palatable, is now fully entrenched. My informal survey tells me that better than half the people in the gym are listening to something. For women, perhaps it is a good way to keep men from hitting on them.

If you use music or books on tape to get you through an indoor workout, enjoy the diversion. If you exercise outside, I encourage you to leave the distractions at home. I don’t even take my cell phone unless I am going on a long run or ride. My observation is that people with distractions put in less effort than those who have none. It is about focus. You cannot get the full benefit of an aerobic workout and read a magazine at the same time. We are geared to multi-task, to extract the most benefit out of our scarce time, but it doesn’t work. I have tried.

I am for finding any creative way to motivate people. Yet in our fast-paced culture, try to see your exercise time as an opportunity to let go of the distractions. Think of it as a time where the Holy Spirit can speak to you. Think of it as a time to focus on your physical needs. Think of it as a time when the oxygen rich blood reaching your brain can result in a new idea or a creative thought.

Pushing It
In this column, I push the concept of high-intensity exercise. I have always been a believer in shorter but more intense workouts. It was only while training for a marathon that I had to revise my short and intense philosophy and adopt a long and slow approach. But if you aren’t training for a long-distance event, take the short and intense approach because the benefits of a vigorous thirty minute workout will outweigh that of a slow and methodical sixty minute session. In other words, more isn’t necessarily better; it’s just more. As we’ll see in a moment, rest is also a factor to our success.

Increasingly, those who study the benefits of serious exercise are finding there is a better way. While these principles are geared toward serious competitors, they apply equally to you and me. First, recognize that with age we change. Our heart rate declines (which impacts our aerobic capacity), muscles shrink (leading to more injury and soreness), and flexibility decreases (which has a direct bearing on connective tissue and extension).

Second, a unique training program established by a couple of brothers is proving to work well. It is a minimalist training regimen which combines intensity with rest. Yes, our Creator had a reason for suggesting a day of rest! The Hanson brothers encourage us to let the body recover without the mind losing confidence. In other words, don’t feel guilty for resting your weary body. They also say that we cannot “bank time.” Simply put, it’s better to start slow and end strong. Human nature and solid training make us want to do too much too early and this is a recipe for disaster. In fitness, as in life, pacing yourself is an essential ingredient in your success.

Don S. Otis (don@veritasincorporated.com) is a certified personal trainer, runner, climber, and author of five books. He runs Veritas Communications, a publicity agency based in Canon City, Colorado.

STOP the Merry-Go-Round

By Cheri Cowell –

Do you ever find you’re talking to yourself? The saying goes, that it’s okay as long as you don’t answer. Well, I think you should answer, and sometimes with a big and resounding STOP! I’m sure you are familiar with the times when that negative voice within just won’t shut up. It seems you’re on a merry-go-round of negative thoughts and don’t know how to get off. The thoughts just keep coming and you are becoming more and more discouraged and despondent. This is when you need to not just talk to yourself, but instead shout, “STOP, I’m getting off this thing.” That will break the cycle, but then you need to follow with steps in a new direction. If you don’t, you’ll end up back on that thing. Begin talking to yourself and take your mind to a new place. Sounds like pop-psychology and not sound biblical counsel?

King David was battling the feelings of depression when he wrote these words. He fought those feelings by reminding himself to be hopeful. David knew God was faithful and He was bigger than any problem David faced. Yet, those overwhelming feelings of depression and discouragement still enveloped him. David fought back by talking to himself. He told himself to look up; though things were bad he had reason to hold onto hope. He told himself to hold onto that hope by looking expectantly for God to do something, and to praise Him while he was waiting. Doesn’t sound like pop-psychology to me, does it to you?

PRAYER: Thank You for being with me in even the darkest of days. Help me to stop the merry-go-round by clinging to the hope I have in You.

“My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,  “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:3-5 NIV).

Today’s devotion is by Cheri Cowell, who writes and speaks on the deep questions of faith. You can learn about her speaking ministry and sign up to receive her daily devotional at http://www.CheriCowell.com

Stringing Along

By Rhonda Rhea –

“Son, did you clean your room?”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s all done.”

Funny how when you look into your teenage son’s room, you find that it’s “all done,” yet things still seem to be swarming in there. Personally, I rarely go in without haz-mat gear.

Teen vision is amazing. I’m nearing the finish line in raising five of them and it’s still remarkable to me that a teenager can look directly at the biggest, ugliest, most disgusting mess and totally not see it.

I opened my microwave not too ago and found a big, fat mound of cheese cooked onto the bottom of the microwave. Someone obviously tried to make one of those nacho mountains. But how could a person zap Mt. Nacho and completely miss the fact that it’s doing a volcano cheese eruption kind of a thing a couple of minutes in? And then how could that teen just walk away and leave all the cheese-lava smoldering there? You would think even a teen would notice something was up when he pulled the plate out, got halfway across the kitchen, then realized the plate was still connected to the microwave by a 6-foot stretchy string of cheese. The only viable answer? Teenage select-a-vision.

Of course, it’s also just about as easy to have selective vision in our spiritual lives sometimes. Isn’t it so much more pleasant to find a fault in someone else than it is to notice a weakness of our own? I don’t even want to think about how many nacho-type messes I’ve noticed in others, all the while stringing along a six-foot-long cheese rope of my own.

But Jesus can give us a different kind of vision. It’s vision that’s not so quick to dismiss our own messes. He asked in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Jesus’ kind of vision clears those hypocrisies right up. And His kind of vision is the kind that sees the best in others. His vision is filtered through love. First Corinthians 13:5 tells us that real love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

According to verse two in that chapter, even mountain-moving faith gets us nowhere if there’s no love.

Loving according to the Lord’s example will keep us on the right track and help us to consistently see things more clearly. It’s not only better vision, it’s the best vision.

By that mountain-moving faith, I’m seeking to hang on to that kind of love vision through those weird scenes in the microwave. Getting plenty of practice. Last week somebody exploded a dozen or so pizza rolls into a forest-looking scene just before another nacho-cano. Now I can’t see the mountain for the cheese.

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality, conference speaker, humor columnist and author of seven books, including High Heels in High Places and her newest book, Whatsoever Things Are Lovely: Must-Have Accessories for God’s Perfect Peace. You can find out more at www.RhondaRhea.org.

Gems in the Rummage Heap

By Robin J. Steinweg –

Thrift stores, garage sales, rummage and yard sales—oh joy, oh rapture, their season approaches!  For years I have felt like the Proverbs 31 wife of noble character. She rises while it is yet night (to get to the best sales early) and provides for her family (like-new clothes for my boys, for pennies). She’s not afraid of snow for her household (not when I managed to find warm boots and water-proof mittens in the right sizes). She makes linen garments and sells them (well, at least I repurposed items and sold them at a profit from the scraps and bits I picked up). Her children rise up and call her blessed (“Thanks, Mom!”); her husband also (“Have I told you how much I appreciate all you do to save money?”), and he praises her.

I have combed countless piles of despised, rejected or outgrown cast-offs to find the right style— the perfect size. My car, sans GPS, knows the route to at least ten thrift stores. I’ve recorded the addresses of clean garage sales whose owners have children a year or so older than mine so I could recognize next year’s sale.

Treasure hunting, that’s what it is. Sometimes the items look anything but gem-like. They might need a good cleaning or even a redo. But when I’m through, they are valuable. It takes a sacrifice of time and energy. It takes a practiced eye (or at least a persistent one) to spot them.

My Jesus has such an eye. But He doesn’t choose people who are gems—He makes gems out of the ones He chooses. He has such a loving eye. He calls me His treasured possession. Belonging to Him is what gives me worth. And His sacrifice was not of time or energy, it was His own life-blood.

So I rise up and call Him blessed. I am grateful. He understands what it’s like to be despised and rejected. Praise the Lord! “All my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits…who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion” (Psalm 103:1b-2; 4 NIV).

PRAYER: You found me and rescued me, Jesus. Because of Your incredible love, You lifted me from the rummage heap and made me Your treasured possession. Now You have given me a new song: one of praise for You, my Lord!

“You are the children of the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be His treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 14:1a, 2b NIV).

Today’s devotional is by Robin J. Steinweg. Robin’s life might be described using the game Twister: the colored dots are all occupied, limbs intertwine (hopefully not to the point of tangling), and you never know which dot the arrow will point to next, but it sure is fun getting there!

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