Monday, November 2, 2009

Yesterday's devotion

I really wanted to share my devotion from yesterday, because I found it inspiring and fitting for some of the things going on in my life. Hope you enjoy it too.

The only people for me are the mad ones...the ones who never yawn and say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. - Jack Kerouac

The enormous success of the first Rocky movie surprised the experts. They saw it as just another low-budget boxing story. Little did they guess it would win so many awards and capture the imagination of millions all over the world.

The experts didn't foresee that the story was really about us. They didn't recognize that the magic of the Rocky character was in his very ordinariness. Rocky was "just a guy," after all, an unlikely, unpromising unknown who didn't look one bit different than any other young punk on the street. But viewers saw that immediately and they identified with it. When Rocky dared to buck the odds, to come roaring out of nowhere, and to shoot for the top, they identified with that, too. Rocky's success was ours; if Rocky can do it, maybe I can, too.

Real life if not lived on the silver screen, of course. But even movie messages may deliver important truths that can inspire our real lives. The central truth of the Rocky phenomenon is that passion and dedication can move mountains. However humble our beginnings, if we have "fire in the belly," those who bet against us will have a big surprise coming.

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