Make a Wish

Amitabh Bachchan as Genius, the genie, in Aladin

My grown son, David, and I went to Aladin this weekend, the new Hindi movie starring Amitabh Bachchan as the genie. See a promo for the movie. The movie has subtitles, and is available for a little while at a few movie theaters in the US. After that, I think that your best bet for legal viewing in the US will be www.erosentertainment.com. I will not call this a deep movie, but it's fun.

I respect Amitabh Bachchan greatly as an actor, and have also been delighted to get to know him a bit as a person through following his blog, which he is amazingly faithful at writing. Since he is one of the most famous actors in India, I was initially startled to find that this one is not a fake, the man actually writes a daily blog, the quality and consistency of which is an inspiration to bloggers everywhere.

On the way home, we got talking about wishes and genies. David pointed out that in the stories, and certainly in this version of the story, people seem to have given very little thought to what wishes they would make if a genie showed up. He allowed as how this is a topic that he has given a great deal of thought to over the years (presumably to be ready, should the opportunity arise. One never knows what the day may bring.) The key issues in his mind were that you have to wish for things that would be useful, but not to wish for anything that would change your nature, or the nature of people around you. His suggestion for this was to wish first for a large amount of money (he suggested that a hundred billion dollars would be nice, if you could also request no accompanying hyper-inflation) followed by the ability to play all musical instruments well, and the ability to speak and understand all languages fluently.

It got me thinking about the fact that the Bible has a "wish fulfillment" story, though not the traditional three wishes of the fairy tales. Solomon was given a wish after he built the Temple (2 Chronicles 1:7-12). God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." Wow! And Solomon chose pretty well, too, asking for wisdom and insight to be able to lead the people and thus fulfill his duties as king. He doesn't wind up with a sausage glued to the end of his nose, or with a gift that destroys everyone around him. His request actually makes God happy, and he not only gets what he asked for but lots of other stuff as well, "wealth, riches and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have," thrown in as a bonus. But it still goes sour in the end, because Solomon lacks the one key thing that his father David had, a heart fully devoted to God. And in the end, all of Solomon's wisdom does not provide the blessing of a heart that is turned to God.

The thing that Jesus suggests we seek, rather than riches, rather than wisdom to rule a kingdom, is the kingdom of God, a gift that he says the Father is pleased to give us, though perhaps we would do well to remember than right after the assurance that it is the Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom comes the command to sell our possessions and give to the poor (Luke 12:31-33). Something to think about.

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 1:20)