Recently my husband and I decided to watch a dvd together and since our taste in movies differs greatly — my favorite being Pride and Prejudice and his Rocky (not the first one but the second or third, his words not mine) — it takes awhile to come to an agreement. This time was different but only because it was the one movie we own that I had yet to see.
CREED
Although I’ve never been a big fan of the Rocky Balboa movies, this one was different. This was about Apollo Creed’s son — his illegitimate son.
I didn’t go into this thinking I might be able to relate to his story — as a wife, mom and Grammy what could I possibly have in common with a young boxer? But this movie resonated with me. It left a mark. And then God began to weave together a message.
I had already intended to write about roadblocks to our dreams when a line in the movie rocked me. The trainer spoke to the young man as he pointed to the boxer’s reflection in the mirror, “That’s the toughest opponent you’re ever going to have to face.”
I had certainly been my own worst enemy and the biggest roadblock to my own God-sized Dreams.
Forty eight years ago I came into this world as an unplanned pregnancy. Throughout my life I feared that because I wasn’t planned (a mistake), God didn’t have a plan for me. I didn’t realize that I had been fighting all along to prove otherwise until I heard this young boxer blurt the words out from his own pain.
“I have to prove it!”
“Prove what?”
“That I’m not a mistake!”
Just like me, he had been fighting an image he created of himself — illegitimate, unwanted, unplanned. So desperate to prove that he was something greater and yet incapable of believing he was anything more than a mistake.
Just like him, I had been trying so hard to prove that I wasn’t a mistake without ever really believing it.
I looked up the definition of creed and one of the simplest explanations was this…
“an idea or set of beliefs that guides the actions of a person or group”
The idea that I wasn’t planned caused me to believe that God couldn’t possibly have a plan for me and that belief created a roadblock to any dreams I could have had for myself.
Sometimes God reveals things to us in unexpected ways — like opening my eyes to a powerful truth through a movie that I wouldn’t normally agree to watch.
Most often our biggest roadblock is staring back at us in the mirror in the lies we believe, definitions we create and labels we give ourselves.
What if we chose to believe that God purposed us to live in this very moment. What if we trusted in His plan for our lives. And what if that plan included a dream He placed in our hearts.
Romans 8:31New International Version (NIV)
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
2 Corinthians 6:18New Living Translation (NLT)
And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.[a]”
Well there you have it. Not only is God is for us, but he calls us His sons and daughters. We are not unwanted, unplanned or illegitimate — we are His.
The only thing we have to prove is that we believe the word of God over the lies of the enemy.
And that my friends will tear down any roadblocks that stand in the way to our God-sized Dreams!
“Life’s not about how hard of a hit you can give… it’s about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa
Shared By: Lanette Haskins
Aliyah says
August 22, 2016 at 2:00 pmHi Lanette, wow this was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this it resonated with me 🙂 Blessings Aliyah
Lanette Haskins (@LanetteHaskins) says
August 22, 2016 at 2:54 pmHi Aliyah! Thanks for sharing! God has a great plan for each of us!! 🙂 Blessings to you!