The Apostle

One of my favorite movies is "The Apostle" with Robert Duvall. A lot of people didn't like it because he portrayed a preacher who was a bit of a scoundrel - a guy with some problems. I liked it for that reason - it didn't sugarcoat anything; it came across as very real, not with the saccharine sweetness of so many Christian films. Maybe some day we'll be open and candid and admit that we have problems - we're not the perfect people we dress up as on Sunday.

That was Duvall's goal - to do a movie showing real Christians in real settings. The extras were real Christians from real churches; he told them just to be themselves and do what they do, and if they made a mistake, why, that would probably be better than what he had planned for them.

What really got to me was that he kept going in spite of setbacks. He lost his church and his family and had to hit the road (he was hiding out from the law). But he had a vision in mind of a church God wanted him to build and he ended up building it. He just didn't quit.

Even in the final scene, after he's in prison, he's on a road gang but leading the other prisoner/workers in praising the Lord.

I'm not saying that we should be hard-nosed in driving at a goal when God may be trying to change our direction - that happens, too. But this is what I took away from the film, that if the vision is from God, He will bring it to pass in spite of everything to the contrary.

It wasn't a perfect description of Christianity. Can you show me a movie that is? But it held for me that pioneering spirit, that desire to serve and love Jesus in spite of everything. That's what kept him going. That's what keeps me going.