Fully Alive!

God’s Family Plan: Establishing Generational Blessing

Fully Alive

“Secondhand Lions” is one of my favorite movies. It’s a family film that tells the story of a shy adolescent boy with a troubled mother that sends him to live with 2 eccentric old uncles. At first, the boy finds the uncles are more than a little scary. They live on an isolated farm in rural Texas and both have fully activated their 2nd amendment gun rights. As the movie progresses, the boy and his uncles forge a strong relationship, become a family and develop a deep love for each other.

In the movie, for some twenty years, the boy and his uncles share a lifetime of challenges as well as blessings that even included having a secondhand lion for a pet. After the nephew has grown and become a successful adult, the adventure-loving, geriatric uncles try flying their bi-plane upside down through their old barn, but they crashed the plane and didn’t live through the experience. The movie comes to a close with the nephew reminiscing about his uncles and describing them using these words, "Yeah, they really lived –

Those are interesting words because it’s quite clear in the movie that the phrase “they really lived” has more than one meaning. The first meaning is ‘having life or having existed’. In the movie, the nephew is telling someone that his uncles were real people that lived real lives.

The second meaning of “really lived” is more than just being alive. It includes the idea of being active, robust, vigorous, thriving and strong. The second meaning of the phrase puts an emphasis on the word ‘really’ and has an exclamation point at the end – they really lived! In other words, it means being fully, totally alive.

The Bible has plenty to say about being really alive. Let’s take a look at scripture to gain more insight and understanding.

The words of Jesus in John 10:10 are a good place to start. Most of you are probably familiar with this passage. The New King James Version reads –

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

I’ll read the end of that verse again. This time in the Passion Translation. Jesus said –

“But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect— life in its fullness until you overflow!”

Let me say that again. ‘Life in its fullness until you overflow!’ Now, that’s the kind of life I’m talking about!