Real Steel

(spoiler!)

[Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was a former boxer who was pretty amazing.  He had gone a shady path, but over the course of the movie we see his friend Bailey (Evangeline Lilly) and his son, Max (Dakota Goyo), change that.]

As I was watching this movie I realized something about a lot of the movies that I love so much, they all have a theme that connects them.  It is the theme of Providence.  Providence is that wonderful thing, knowledge, that there is a plan for our good, not for our ill.  "For I know well the plans I have in mind for you...plans for your welfare and not for woe so as to give you a future of hope." Jer. 29:11  It is this idea that all things are given for our good and maturity.  

This movie is no exception to that wonderful thing.  Charlie Kenton at the beginning of the film is not somebody that we necessarily like but ,through some turn of events, you cannot imagine something good to come out of, something good does come.  Bailey had told Max earlier in the film, to watch Charlie box was one of the most magical things, you would be taken up in the beauty of an athlete that could move so gracefully.  In this clip we see not only the transformation of the life of Charlie, but also of Max.  Charlie has been a crappy dad to Max throughout the film, but he sees his father for the glory that his father is, and Bailey sees that magic once more.  

You can see the joy so present on Charlie's face when he is boxing back to Zeus.  It is amazing to see people so enthralled in the task at hand, to stand back and watch the beauty of what people do.  The emotion in that moment is almost tangible.  At the beginning of the film, nobody could have imagined the outcome, that situation that seemed so dire could be redeemed.  

The Lord works in mysterious ways.  I know it seems like a cop-out, but so often we forget that God is choosing to save us directly from the circumstances that are from us.  I imagine a lot of people, when they get up to the pearly gates and are talking to God they will ask, "Why did you let me get so messed up," or "why was I abused, why did you not step in to save me?"  And He will show us how our life would have been different had those things not happened...and we see the person that we would never have wished to become.  Providence is that guiding factor, reminding us that there is a plan, not that we have to know it, but that He has plans for our good, not our woe.  May you today embrace the knowledge that there is a plan, and that these circumstances no matter how terrible, are given for your good.