Evan Almighty

Well, today was a monumental day in the father-daughter relationship at the Gartman house. Being that today is the last day of the summer for Garin, she and I decided to make it a daddy-daughter-date-day(d4). After going to Ross and meeting her first grade teacher, Mrs. Peters, she and I selected Evan Almighty as our feature film of the day. This was huge because it was the first d4 movie that was as much about what I wanted to see as it was what she wanted to see. It did not disappoint and as Garin explained to Rhonda at the family table tonight, "It was funny, sad and happy."

As we drove home from the theater, I picked Garin's brain a little regarding the movie. "So, do you think God always wears a white suite," I asked. "No...he wears really, really, really old clothes because he is really old...older than people," she reasoned. I prodded a little more, but she wasn't really wanting to discuss at that moment. She really wanted to talk about whether Mom would go on a girls-day-out with her to see Shrek 3 tomorrow.

At family table, she recounted every bit of the movie to Mom and it was great. But the fun for me came about an hour ago. I told her that we would read the Bible's version of the story at bedtime and compare notes. So we laid down and I opened up the Message version of the Bible to Genesis 6. I asked her which story was true and she paused and seemed a little confused. I said, "Remember what we know about the Bible?" and I held up my two fingers like an oath. She and I said together, "I know the Bible tells me the truth." From there we were off to the races. We read the story of Noah, then I explained how he was one of our great-grandfathers and she was amazed. After reading the story, we named the things that were the same as in the movie. A boat and animals and God said build it, and that was all we came up with. After hearing that God destroyed the earth because of the disobedience and evil in the world, she wanted me to know that she loved God more than anything or anyone else in the world. Then I asked her how she loved God. She wasn't sure how to answer that...in fact some of adults have given me the same look she gave. I told her that we believe there are several ways we can love God back, but that our church wants us to learn ten specific ways. For the next several minutes, we discussed those ways we love God back - prayer, worship, bible study, groups (biblical community), gifts, focus (single-minded living), giving away our money, giving away our time, giving away our faith and giving away our lives...all with new hand motions!!!

As I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight, I reminded her that there is nothing in this world more important than loving God with everything we have and loving others as ourselves; and we love God by loving others. It's that simple.