A few months back when the new Lego movie came out, we took our sons to see it. The movie was great. It kept their attention. And we loved it. (My 3 sons are so wildly in to Legos right now!)

The theme song to the movie is a very catchy pop song called Everything is Awesome! 

Emmett, the main character in the movie, is a happy-go-lucky construction worker who begins each day enthusiastically singing this song – “Everything is Awesome!” The song is very catchy. The lyrics are funny. I especially like the song. My sons and I sing it together often. One line in the song says “Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team.” Who doesn’t like happy encouraging words like that?

But the other day a few things were going wrong in our house. It was cold and rainy so the kids could not go outside. We did not allow the TV to be on because we had already watched too much television.  It was not the best day in the life of our kids.

Well, Noah was walking through the house singing “Everything is awesome!” He said it several times. And that’s when I heard JJ say to him, “No. Everything is not awesome!”

It was a pivotal moment in our kids lives. I was glad to hear him say that. I am glad that he knows that.

JJ loves that song more than my other kids. He knows all the lyrics. He sings it more often than his brothers. But he knows its not totally true.

I don’t want to be a dad that falsely causes his kids to think everything is awesome. That’s not true. Some days are bad. Some days it rains, and we are stuck indoors. Some days we cannot do what we REALLY want to do. Some days are not awesome.

It is healthy for a kid to learn that reality because the older they get the more it will be clear. Let me give a few examples:

Just in the last week:

• A 16 year old girl has come to me for help. She is in trouble from drugs. She has dropped out of school.  The dad of her baby is not involved. She does not have a job.
• We cared for handfuls of people we know who are painfully battling through cancer.
• I spoke to my mother who lost her father 2 weeks ago. She and her mother (my grandmother) are crying and grieving as they deal with the loss of their father/husband.
• An alcoholic called me in tears asking for help. He says he is at rock bottom and does not know what to do. He cannot stop drinking.
• Another family near and dear to us found out that a loved one had committed suicide.
• Another family has come desperately seeking financial help because they are drowning in debt.

These are just some of the things that have happened in the last few days. None of these are on the news. I have not even mentioned the 5 year old in Louisville killed by a drunk-driver, or the ferry in South Korea that sank with hundreds on board, or the lost plane with over 300 passengers unaccounted for. We could go on and on and on with things that are not awesome. 

But in all honesty, things just aren’t. They are not awesome.  My son, JJ, learned this truth that day. And I am glad he did.

So we need to understand life in light of this realization. If we do not come to understand this truth, then life will be too hard for us. If we do not understand this truth, then we will not understand God.

God tells us in the Bible “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves…” -(Romans 8:22-23) In other words, everything is not awesome. Don’t be confused. Don’t have unrealistic expectations for life. Life indeed can be great at times, but everything is not awesome.

But God is awesome. And if anyone is in Christ, they are safe- they are God’s.

“Come and see what God has done: He is awesome…” -Psalm 66:5

So, lets not look for life to be awesome but instead look to God who is!