Your words I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11
Movie fans always seem to choose a special scene, phrase, or “ism” that is used in their favorite movies. It’s funny, but when our family is together, all you need to do is mention a certain phrase, such as “Are you serious, Clark?”, and we call up cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation. We still laugh in spite of ourselves. Folks might change the words around a bit, but you still get that visual image of the scene and the movie.
I did some research on some of the more famous lines in movies, and it is surprising how some of the words we think were spoken actually were not. Take for instance Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Bogart never actually said, “Play it again, Sam.” The only time a similar phrase was used, it was said by Bergman when she said, “Play it, Sam.”
The phrase, “Just follow your heart and believe, and you can do anything,” has been associated with Christian sayings, but it is actually from the Song of Disney. The verse “Direct me in the path of your commands for there I find delight” (Psalm 119:35) is the closest thing to the old saying.
People quote This too shall pass, and most of us assume it was said by Jesus, but it’s not in the Bible. The closest thing is 2 Corinthians 5:17 which says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away, behold new things have come.
The one I hear most often is God helps those who help themselves which I just assumed must be from the Bible, but it’s not. It seems that it originated in ancient Greece, but Benjamin Franklin gets most of the credit for using it. Proverbs 13:4 is one verse in the Bible that might be the inspiration: The sluggard craves and get nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
The mind will believe everything you tell it. You have to feed it the right information or you’ll end up believing anything you read or hear. It’s interesting how we seem to just adopt sayings and assume that they must be inspired by God. If we all spent as much time learning scriptures as we do learning lines in movies, we’d make God’s job a lot easier on this earth.
Arthur Fletcher said the mind is a terrible thing to waste. We should all strive to know the difference between “isms” and fact.
Have a nice day! (First appeared in the 1948 film, A Letter to Three Wives)
So true. He did tell us to hide His Word in our hearts… Thank you Diane! As always right on.