Percy Jackson (Warning: Spoilers)

I just finished reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.

For anyone who does not know what this book is, it's the first in a series about modern Greek mythology, the main character being Percy, who is the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman.

I had mixed emotions about the book. It was intriguing, funny, mostly I would say a good book. On the other hand I couldn't get past a few things about the Greek mythology, because I am a Christian and it is contradictory to what I believe.

But laying that aside, I learned a few things from reading it.

First thing's first, I noticed a distorted version of the truth portrayed. Not just in this book, but in all Greek mythology, there tends to be a male god who has a child with a mortal woman, and the son is the hero of the story. Familiar? It sounds a whole lot like Jesus, being the Son of God and Mary, and being the "hero of the story." The difference is this, the children born of the gods of Greek mythology are half god and half man, and they are born because of immorality, most of the time.

Jesus was FULLY God, and FULLY man, and He was born of a righteous, perfect God, and a virgin.

The key points are left out, but other than that the story is basically the same. Interesting how Satan created a near replica of the truth for the Greeks to believe.

Another thing I noticed was this,

Percy goes to a camp called Camp Half-Blood, where they train all of the demi-gods. When he gets there he meets a lot of kids who are hurting, they feel depressed and sort of rejected, because their god-parent doesn't seem to care about them. Percy had the same sort of feeling, and it is totally reasonable, we naturally want to have a relationship with our parents. I think if we had a parent who was a god and they really didn't care if we lived or died or if they ever got to see us, we would feel rejected too.

I don't remember if Percy says it, or how the message gets across, but there is an attitude of, "It's not unreasonable for our parents to not care about us, they are gods. They have more important things I worry about."

Percy spends a loooong time journeying before he gets to meet his father, but when he does he only gets to see him for about two minutes and then he has to leave. He leaves knowing that may be his last time ever seeing him.

I have grown up hearing Pastors say that God is a personal God. I know that. It does mean a lot to me, but I can't really grasp the full meaning because I have grown up having the emphasis on how personal He is, and not how sovereign He is.

But I realized as I read the book that God is every bit as God as these gods are, and waaaaay more. Yet He doesn't ignore His children. He wants us, He wants a relationship with us.

And the other thing is that we don't have to make a long perilous journey to talk to Him for two minutes! (and be afraid of whether He will punish us for wasting His time) We get to be with Him 24/7!

Our God is so much better than the Greek gods.

The Things We Do

I came to a lovely realization a while ago. Actually...I'm not sure if I thought it was lovely at the time, but now that I have thought about it more, I love it.

This is it in a nutshell, What we do does not define who we are.

I have known this to be true for a long time. Having struggled with self worth I realized a long time ago that what I do does not make me who I am, but Who I believe in.

My identity is in Christ, He says I am righteous and so I am, because what the world sees in me is fault, but God sees who He has made me to be, which is faultless.

This has been enormously helpful for me, and still will continue to be I am sure, but there is another side of it that I had not thought about until recently.

I love it because it builds me up, it shows me that I am more than I think I am sometimes. But now I love it too because when it needs to it breaks me down, it makes me humble.

If the bad things that I do do not make me bad, then surely the good things I do will not make me good.

I made some notes after first thinking about the second side of this, and here is some of what I wrote.

"We lay uncovered before God and He sees our hearts, and He sees who believes. He does not count us "good" or "bad" based on our actions, but based on who we put our trust in.

The world likes to label everyone based on what they do. If you paint pictures for a living, they call you "An artist." If you rule a kingdom, they call you a "king" or a "queen," if you do a lot of good things, they call you a "good person," but this is all external stuff."

If I can as easily say, "I am nothing because I have done wrong," as I can say, "I am better than other people because I have done right," then isn't judging based on what I do or achieve a flawed judgment?

Again, it points me back to Christ.

The only way I can be good is through Christ, I am shown this by both ways of thinking, whether it is that Christ defines who I am or...I guess they both are that Christ defines who I am. And that is it, plain and simple.

For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)