"Gifted"

There is a fascinating movie just out called "Gifted". The main characters are a 7 yr old girl named Mary and her uncle named Frank, who has had custody of her since birth because Mary's mother committed suicide. Mary has extraordinary gifts as a mathematician, as did her mother and grandmother. Mary's mother was so gifted that her mother had kept her from all the normal aspects of life for a young girl to pursue unprecedented achievements in mathematics. Frank did not want Mary to "suffer" in that way, so he committed to give her as much of a normal life as he could. It was his gift of love to her (the multiple pictures of gifting in the movie). I won't spoil the plot for you by going any further, but I did want to share one scene that was profound in many ways.

There was a moment early in the movie where Mary asked her uncle, the one she saw as her authority, "Do believe there is a God?" Frank's response was (paraphrased), "No, but nobody really knows. The people who say they do say they have faith, but faith is just thinking and feeling a certain way. They really don't know."

We find out later Frank had a Ph D in Philosophy and had taught at a university in Boston before he took Mary to Florida away from all the influences of Mary's grandmother. What is important to note about Frank's response?

First, his response was very typical of what many people believe. This is especially true of many professors in universities. Second, Frank's conclusion about God was not the most significant message he gave to Mary. Her question was about God, but his answer was something even more profound. Hidden from him and therefore given to Mary was his core assumptions about knowledge, truth and faith. His worldview of God was a rational judgment flowing from a b4worldview about knowledge and faith. His assumption was that he could only trust knowledge he gained from physical evidence. That's a core assumption Frank never questioned, but used to "prove" everything else. He never considered that his core assumption was not the only one available to him. In fact, this assumption abut knowledge and faith maintains a great degree of futility. You could see it in Franks's answer, "nobody really knows."

Frank had a perfect opportunity to explain to Mary that there are 2 kinds of knowledge. One kind we do get from observing the physical world. And while there is physical evidence that beautiful sunsets, the ocean, the mountain, morality, love and many other things we experience in this world certainly point to "gifts" of a Creator, no one actually sees God visibly with their human eyes. Plus, we also see storms and other natural disasters as well as terrorism and many acts of evil and ask, "if there is a God, He must not really care that much or is not in control." The second kind of knowledge is the awareness we get from ways other than observation. Intuition and revelation provide us knowledge in ways that are different from what our physical senses provide. Some call this heart knowledge.

Because there are two kinds of knowledge, there are two kinds of evidence we can trust for our thoughts, feelings and actions. Science is the evidence from observable knowledge and faith is the evidence from the unobservable knowledge. Science is a "probabilistic" likelihood of something, faith is an "assurance." Frank's didn't just fail to give Mary a good answer about God, he failed to provide her a complete understanding of knowledge and faith.


Jesus came to earth to give mankind an observable glimpse of God (Christmas), but His resurrection (Easter) provided the ultimate GIFT. We now have faith we receive when God reveals Himself to us through unobservable knowledge (work of the Holy Spirit). Frank's love for Mary made a great movie. We admire that kind of love a lot. He gave her a normal life by his commitment to provide for her physical and emotional needs, BUT he missed giving her the gift that leads to eternal life, not normal life. He failed to share with her the Kingdom b4worldview of knowledge, truth and faith.

Where is your b4worldview? Where does it take you? to a normal life or to eternal life?

Certainly worth pondering this Easter ......