What I learned when I finally got to see TROLLS
Shout out to SAM HILTON for this GUEST POST:
For some reason my kids have a distaste for the new and a love for the old when it comes to movies. If we let them they would be happy to keep 5 or 6 movies on repeat and watch them over and over and over again.
Finally I got to see ‘Trolls’, which it turns out is all about happiness. The movie begins like this:
Once upon a time in a happy forest, in the happiest tree lived the happiest creatures the world has ever known: The trolls. They loved nothing more than to sing, and dance, and hug. Dance, and hug, and sing, and dance, and sing, and hug, and dance and hug, and dance, and sing, and hug, and dance, and hug. But then one day, the trolls were discovered by a Bergen!
The Bergen were a miserable bunch and believed that true happiness could only be obtained by eating one of these happy little creatures, the Trolls. But it turns out there is another path to happiness, true happiness. And so, the Trolls, led by their singing & dancing leader Poppy, teach the Bergen that happiness is found within.
Poppy declares, ‘Happiness isn’t something you put inside, it’s already there. Sometimes you just need someone to help you find it.’
This of course is the ‘truth’ we live by and preach to one another in the West. On social media and through self-help books we are constantly teaching one another that happiness is something that can be taught or caught (and to be honest, all the singing and dancing in the movie does make you ‘feel’ happy).
But it’s a tiring motto to live by. How do you keep ‘releasing’ the happiness within day after day when life throws you a curve ball? How do you keep being eternally happy when life completely falls apart?
The Bible is refreshingly honest.
It acknowledges pain and suffering in our world.
Yet still teaches us that an enduring happiness can be found.
But it doesn’t come from within.
Rather, it says the source of our enduring and eternal happiness is found outside.
In the person of Jesus, who came to give us life, life to the full!
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