Have you seen Facing The Giants yet? Here’s how the filmmakers describe this new, action-packed, family-friendly drama about a high school football coach.
In six years of coaching, Grant Taylor has never had a winning season. Even the hope of a new season is squelched when the best player on his Shiloh Eagles decides to transfer schools. After losing their first three games of the season, the coach discovers a group of fathers are plotting to have him fired. Combined with pressures at home, Coach Taylor loses hope in his battle against fear and failure. However, an unexpected challenge helps him find a purpose bigger than just victories. Daring to trust God to do the impossible, Coach Taylor and the Eagles discover how faith plays out on the field … and off. With God, all things are possible …
I found it easy to identify with Coach Taylor, at least in the beginning of the movie. He was a guy with real life problems just like yours and mine–the coach of a losing high school football team, the owner of a clunker of a car and the occupant of a house that stunk. Like Elkanah, Samuel’s father, he and his wife were unable to have a child, but in the middle of his adversities, he turns to God.
Here, in my opinon, is where the film turns in to fantasy. After prayer, everything and I mean everything begins to turn around. The football team he coaches starts winning, revival breaks out on the football field, someone gives him a brand new truck, the team wins the state playoffs twice and his wife miraculously conceives and gives birth. He even finds and eliminates the cause for the foul smell in his house.
Don’t get me wrong, I was glad for him, but for many of us that’s not the way life is. Facing The Giants is a great fantasy about God and Christianity, but it bears little resemblance to the reality being played out in hospital rooms and nursing homes and many of the front rooms and churches in our world.
Last year, my oldest daughter and her family lost their home and business when Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast. For more than two years my second to oldest daughter has been praying and believing God for a healing that has yet to come. Instead of giving up, she presses past her pain and fulfills His will. After spending weeks in a hospital bed with her legs elevated to prevent a premature delivery, my number three daughter gave birth to little Kyle. Instead of taking him home to cuddle, we buried him. In spite of prayer and faith, the miracles we hoped for did not come.
Do I believe God still works miracles? Yes! Do I believe God loves me? YES! Do I believe He answers prayer? Yes, but sometimes His answer is “NO” and sometimes it’s “WAIT”. On other occasions He calls us to trust Him unconditionally.
Some of the problems people face are much larger than a losing football season. For instance, where was the God portrayed in Facing The Giants when the mothers in Rama [Mt. 2:18] were weeping for their murdered Children? Why didn’t He answer their prayers or did He? Where was God when Todd Beamer crashed into a Pennsylvania pasture on 9/11? Where was God when I needed a miracle for my grandson? Where was God when your miracle didn’t come?
In his book “Disappointment With God,” Philip Yancey wrote:
Some people lose their faith because of a sharp sense of disappointment with God. They expect God to act a certain way, and God “lets them down.” Others may not lose their faith, but they too experience a form of disappointment. They believe God will intervene, they pray for a miracle, and their prayers come back unanswered. [Philip Yancey, Disappointment With God, page 26.]
Unlike Coach Taylor, C. S. Lewis didn’t get the car, the house and the winning season. In Shadowlands, a movie about Lewis’ life, his wife fights and loses her battle with cancer. Lewis is forced to either trust God or give up his faith. He chooses to trust!
I am convinced that many will view Facing the Giants and leave feeling better about life, and that’s not bad. I believe other will leave with honest questions. Both groups need to know that God is still God when there is no miracle! They need to know that prayer doesn’t always produce a winning season. Perhaps the Giant we are being called upon to face is the religious illusion that when we believe God, we will all live happily ever after. Maybe God is calling us to trust Him unconditionally…to trust Him when there is no miracle!
That’s one of the major criticisms of the films that I’ve seen. But I read an interview CTI (my employer) conducted with the director/writer, and he said he seriously considered a more unhappy plot, but that during the making of the film so many things “serendipitously” happened–that God was truly doing behind the scenes the kinds of things they were filming in front of the camera. He finally felt that the film’s message should reflect what they were experiencing as a community in his church.
I’ll likely catch the film after it arrives on DVD.
Rich.
By: Rich Tatum on October 9, 2006
at 10:24 am
Bon ami,
So, someone else came away feeling the film was a great piece of a Christian fiction? Do you have the URL for their post? I’d love to read it.
I had no problem with the happy ending, but I think a lot of people will elevate it to the level of reality instead of just viewing it as a movie.
blessings,
tiolou
By: tiolou on October 9, 2006
at 10:35 am
Here you go:
INTERVIEW: Facing the CriticsAlex Kendrick, writer/director of a new Christian film, Facing the Giants, was in the news over an MPAA ratings flap regarding his project. Now he’s answering his critics—and talking up his movie.by Mark Moring | posted 09/26/06
Rich
BlogRodent
By: Rich Tatum on October 9, 2006
at 11:11 am
I will say a few things in response to your blog on the movie “Facing The Giants”. You are right that God doesn’t always answer “yes” to our prayers as he did in this movie. Do I think that it was fantasy? I’d have to say no. Cause the movie depicted just how God CAN work in our lives. Yes, this movie choose to have all types of miracles happen to show Gods awesomenss and glory. However, one thing that I really liked about the movie is that they pushed the point to praise God in the storm, to praise him in the good and in the bad. You speak of different instances in the news and in your life when God seemed like he didn’t answer your prayers, but his answer isn’t always yes, is it? Just like at the cross, Jesus didn’t want to be beaten, spit on or nailed to a cross, but he did it. Yes, a non-christian may look at this movie and come to the same type of conclusion that you have. Or…there just might be that one non believer that sees a way to attack the “Giants” in their life and that really catches a grasp of the real importance that this movie shows and that is God’s love. I have one more question for you and that is, ” didn’t you catch the part of the movie that spoke of the two farmers. How they both prayed, but only one prepared the field for the rain. My question to you is, which farmer are you?
By: Rennie on October 14, 2006
at 8:27 am
Rennie,
Thanks for the visit and for leaving some words for me to peruse.
Yes, the movie “pushed the point to praise God in the storm,” but that point lost its weight as the movie progressed. It’s easy to “push the point” on the silver screen when you can manipulate the ending and make every one live happily ever after. They did everything but turn the pumpkin into a coach for Cinderella and the mice into horses. They didn’t bury a baby in the movie. Coach Taylor’s wife didn’t even get out the clinic parking lot before her “no pregnancy” was reversed. They didn’t have their home blown away by a hurricane. They didn’t lose anything but four football games. Oh my! In the end Sister Taylor was pregnant for their second child and there were two state championship trophies on the mantle. It was a great piece of fiction for Christians, but it didn’t bear much resemblance to real life for the average Joe.
Pastor James in the Philippines lives on $20 a month. He spends his early morning hours in prayer and rides a bicycle to his preaching points. His bedroom floods every time it rains. Visiting preachers from America told him that if he would just believe God…he could have a nice car, the big salary and a house of his own. My point…FTG is a great piece of fiction that most of the world will not relate to.
What did impress me was the fact that they did the project on a $20,000 budget, with handheld video cameras and inexperienced actors and actresses. Not bad!
Would I recommend the movie to my friends? Yes! Tomorrow night I’m going to join members of my small group and view it with them. “One large popcorn, please and a Dr. Pepper…errr ummm…large.” We’ll be discussing the movie next Wednesday. Would you like to join us?
Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Blessings,
tiolou
By: tiolou on October 14, 2006
at 9:37 am
Some of us experience exactly what played out on the big screen in facing the giants. I have many health problems. My parents were told(when I was 13) I would deteriorate into a wheelchair and be there until my death, never to walk again. Fourteen doctors (specialist) confirmed and left me without hope (but God). They said I would never have children. My dreams for a future all but squashed. What man would marry a woman who they would end up carry for like a child never to have a child of their own?
I dug into the word of God. I said, “If I never walk again, I will still praise you.” It took three years of working through unbearable pain and determination but I’m not in a wheel chair nor do I ever intend to be. I married a God fearing man. He decided to love God and me if I never had children. We prayed. We had people praying for us. We saw doctors. We had infertility treatments. It didn’t turn around over night. It took 10 years of never losing faith. I believed. “No good thing does God withhold to those who walk upright.” I have a seven year old boy named Justin because it means upright. I was told no more. You risking too much. You will die, the baby will die, and the son you prayed for will be motherless. I said. No. God said, “He maketh the barren woman to keep house and be the joyous mother of children.” That’s plural and I get to have more than one. It didn’t happen overnight, I have a 5 year old named David Tucker. That means beloved fullfillment. Just because He can. God blessed me with a third child. Another boy. Don’t tell me real miracles don’t happen. It is not fantasy. I’m living in my rain! I prepared the field. I believe it is not over yet. After the rain, comes a HARVEST!!!!!!!!! The Bible says some 100 fold. It is the aroma of your heart. Just like in FTG.
In His Love,
Christy
By: Christy on February 6, 2007
at 8:46 pm
I loved the movie! I am so glad that so many people went to so much trouble to produce it. I was touched by the awesomeness of God. My heart goes out to the people who think this movie doesn’t portray reality. He is so much bigger than we can imagine. We stop Him from working in our lives by unbelief, bitterness and unforgiveness. He is not a puppet. He is not at our beck and call. He has a greater purpose for our life than we can imagine. We need to bow to Him and let Him take control. He is a God of love and wants to fill us and surround us with His love and power. I appreciate how they emphasized in the movie how we are to praise Him in the bad times and the good times. That’s the secret!!!
By: Irma on March 24, 2007
at 5:34 am
Amen Irma and Amen Christy !!!!
By: llo on April 7, 2007
at 10:10 am
Regrettably, or wonderously, I believe that God does not interfere necessarily to prevent the day to day tragedies mankind faces. God endowed us with free will. The only way to truly love is to love of your own free will. In this way, God wants us to choose him, love him, acknowledge him. He could have probably shaped this reaction, but then that wouldn’t be “true” love if not given of free will. Free to choose good, or evil, love or contempt. For there to be light, there must be dark (or we couldn’t recognize “light” as such). And for there to be good, there must also be bad. Free will, and good and bad to choose from. Unfortunately the bad does result in tragedy and heartache, for all eventually. It is unavoidable. But if God intervened, and shaped the outcomes (by even protecting us from “bad”) then it destroys the opportunities for us (as mankind) to choose love, and God, of our own free will. I think in essence, this is how simple God’s desire is. To simply acknowledge his existence, and say thanks,..for,..well,…everything! I thank him realizing that “bad” exists only so “good” may also exist.
By: JAB on May 14, 2007
at 5:18 am
i dont know how should i work to face my big Giants. Bur there is no giant is too big if Jeus in us
By: Surya Perdana Siahaan on December 2, 2007
at 11:24 am