God Cares About Everything

This will be a switch from the deep (and confusing logic) of my last post. Hopefully it comes a little more naturally.

Yesterday, I went to The LEGO Movie. I swear, I tried so incredibly hard not to cry. I really did try. By the end, however, I was unsuccessful. I cry at everything. I cry when I'm happy and when I'm sad. I cry with movies and with music. I used to try not to cry and I would be ashamed when I was younger, but now I embrace it and I encourage others to cry. The human body releases three kinds of tears, which each... Well, I'll stay on topic.

What I've realized though is that I cry much easier than I ever have, and as weird as it sounds, this has grown as my relationship with the Lord has grown. The more I feel that I understand and have conformed to God's heart, the more tears just come naturally. I cry at what seems like the silliest things, too. Heck, I cry at delicious foods, or watching a fan meet a famous person.

I asked myself "Why?" Why do I cry at everything? I realized it's because we live in a world that was created by God, and he cares about his creation. He didn't just create some basic things we like to say are most important, either, such as love and death. God created oak trees, the Mona Lisa, electro swing, skyscrapers, hamburgers, Breaking Bad, gymnastics, mathematics, accidental curly fries, supernovas, smiley faces, being double jointed, water fountains, the old west, kaleidoscopes, spaceships, and so much more.

I think that as Christians, we can sometimes forget this, especially those of us with a logical slant. I do think that we need to remember there are things to be priority in our emphasis, such as love, justice, mercy, and other values. However, we live in a universe created by God, and he cares about every single element of it.

I grew up watching movies and looking for the "normal" values (from how I was taught). You watched a movie for it's positive characters, for a good and happy ending, for interesting twists, and for clear moral lessons. Otherwise, a movie was considered pointless and stupid. As I've made new friends, however, I've seen a world beyond these oversimplifications of media. I've realized that you can watch a movie for a talented director, for beautiful music, for anti-heroes, for a genre that seems to effect our hearts just right. Movies can pique our passions for a variety of reasons, and maybe some deserve to be emphasized, but they all matter.

I think this is why I cry at everything. because God cares about everything. He even cares about a single actor portraying an emotion really well. He cares about what it feels to be in a cyberpunk dystopia. He cares about a director who can portray a variety of film genres well. In this way, we can say "everyone is special" and that man is made in God's image... and not be lying. Because when we play favorites with what counts as being important, we diagnose the people who care about what isn't "important" as being broken or less than special.

So I'll continue to cry at everything, because passions are important to God. I love seeing everything done in excellence. I even love watching a story of a character making bad choices and destroying their lives like in Breaking Bad, because I learn to do better, and I sympathize with people just like Jesus did when he suffered for our sins. I'll cry about the Peanut Butter Pickle Bacon burger at Killer Burger because it's so delicious. I'll cry at emotional piano covers of inappropriate songs like The Bad Touch by Tom Rosenthal. And I'll cry to see how happy my friends are at shows and movies I don't quite get just because I know how it effects them.

I'll keep trying to care about everything. Everything. Because God cares about everything, and if I love and grow to be more like him, I will too.