Zay Weighs in

Fatherhood, something hard, something messy, something rewarding. Yet it is something few people experience. Sure they have kids, they love them, but they are never really fathers. If God is our example of a father figure 99% of dads across the world are missing the mark. But what if they realized this, what if they strove to right the wrongs, fight the fights, and win back the hearts and minds of their children, then give them back to God? This is what Courageous is about, answering that one "what if?" and then some.

Now I have been fan of the Kendrick brothers since their first film "Flywheel”. Two brothers that looked at the movies today and realized its application in the spiritual realm. From their first attempts at holding a camera steady to this movie, God has had their backs, and I was happy enough to be able to be one of the first to view the fruits of their labor.

As many of you know, I enjoy making films, and I know about many of the mechanics that go into making a movie. Not only that but I am a avid movie watcher, not just for entertainment-but for dissecting. And when I went to see this film, I knew that their last film "Fireproof" was a good movie, but it still gripped tight to that "New filmmaker" smell. For this, I was expecting something like Fireproof, only more polished. I was wrong. What I got was a full MMA HD smack down for my eyeballs, my sight and expectations lost, but high quality and pure filmmaking expertise stood over their remains holding the championship belt. And when my eyes finally recovered, they didn't have a moment of down time, this film was brilliantly layered, there was always something going on, and all of it was needed.

This film was sheer filmmaking perfection, color grades, editing, camera shots, all done for the glory of God. I am angry at my keyboard's pure lack of ability to relay how I truly feel about the movie. Acting was brilliant, you saw pure, unacted emotions on these people's faces, making every bit of drama completely your own. When characters shed tears, theirs hit the ground right next to yours. They showed fathers this is life, and that God is with you though all of it. This is where the always present "negative paragraph" goes. But I shooed it away, this movie deserves nothing but respect, because obviously, it had God's.

Fathers in this fallen world rarely stick around. They want nothing to do with their sons, daughters, and spouses. And because of this, earth falls deeper into the black pit it dug for itself. Crime rates rise, young suicides pour into it, and bitter hearts cause this black concoction to spill over the sides of the glass and onto humanity, making for a drowning world without the respect for God only daddies can teach. This movie shows fathers that they have a bigger part in this life than they thought, and that there is no way out of it, because you are either a good father, or a bad one. You stay a father period.  But the choice is yours. Will you let your children drown in this world, filling up their lungs with the gunk fathers before you left? Or will you be a part of the clean up team, protecting your kids from the world, showing them God's love? To teach them to do the same as you, so they may dry the world and make it presentable for the second coming. Will you sign the resolution and increase your accountability or just sit back on the couch, scratch your stomach, and merely be a spectator?

This movie opened my eyes to something as well, although I am not a father odds are, I will be. This frightens me terribly, I fear that I will not be able to fully be the father my son/daughter deserves but this movie shows that I will never be. Not without help. It says that fatherhood without the inventor of it is doomed to failure. But with him, you will have the strength to outweigh the world for your children. In the mean time, for now, I just need to prepare my heart for it. Do not just see this movie to support, view to learn, view to cry, view to show that God is in this with us. "As for me and my house, we will follow the Lord."

But this movie did something else, it opened my eyes to a job I was completely oblivious to, even though it was being performed in my own home. I never realized what all went into my dad's job as a father before. I never knew that it was so grueling and demanding. I never knew that he deserved a great deal more respect than I was giving him. But now I do. But for me, I am just happy that my father was already doing what the movie teaches perfectly.

I love you dad.