The 1983 Christmas comedy Trading Places plays like a modern-day retelling of both Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper and The Million Pound Banknote. While it's not a perfect analogy, it can offer us an insight into the Christmas message and how God sent Jesus to trade places with us.…
During the run up to Christmas, we are bombarded with seasonal songs. Some will be traditional Christmas Carols that we sing in church or on the streets. Others will be secular holiday hits we hear over the radio, in stores, and everywhere else we go. In Luke's gospel, we also…
The 1971 Christmas song Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon begins with the contemplative lyrics: So this is Christmas and what have you done Another year over, a new one just begun The lyrics of Lennon's song can hammer home what many people experience at this time. While many…
**This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure page for more information.** The Season 6 finale of Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes detective drama starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, aired this week. In it, we see Watson falsely accused of murder and the lengths that Holmes will go to help her out. The episode,…
**This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure page for more information.** You've probably experienced this situation before. A relationship ends, or you lose your job. Or maybe you've been praying for an opportunity in a certain area and your prayers seem to go unanswered. Perhaps you don't get that promotion or that…
Do you ever find that you're comparing yourself to certain characters in the Bible and wondering how you could be more like them? Well, many of them didn't have it all together and spent much of their time comparing themselves to each other. I wanted to look at these…
The recent Marvel Studios movie Ant-Man and the Wasp is all about size. The two titular super heroes have special suits that give them the ability to shrink themselves down to insect size but gain super strength. However, Ant-Man has an added power. He can also grow to giant…
Do you ever feel like you don’t belong? Perhaps, for whatever reason, you feel like an outcast from society and you're on the outside looking in. Maybe you're not part of the popular in-crowd and it feels like everyone else is included except for you. I know what that's like.…
**This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure page for more information.** In the 1993 classic comedy Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character Phil Connors is stuck in a perpetual time loop and forced to relive the same day over and over. Every day at 6.00 am, the day resets without fail. At first he…
In the 2005 Fox Studios-produced Marvel comic book movie, Fantastic Four, Jessica Alba's character Sue Storm is having dinner with her on-again, off-again boyfriend (and later husband), Reed Richards (played by Ioan Gruffudd) who is the smartest man in the world. At one point in the conversation, she is frustrated with…