The Courageous Teens

1

2

Tomorrow night, my church will be showing the movie Courageous. So today, I wanted to look at the three main teenagers in the movie. Though the movie is geared toward fatherhood, I feel like there are lessons that we can learn from these three: Dylan, Derrick, and Jade.

These three teenagers all have different struggles. Dylan is afterthought in his father's eyes compared to his little sister. Derrick only has his grandmother at home. Jade wants to start dating but her parents don't approve of who she likes. 

They each try to cope with their struggles. Dylan tries to lose himself in his video games, running, and in the novel, starts to turn to drugs. Derrick turns to Gangster Nation, the largest gang in Albany, where he thinks he can find acceptance in "the man's world" of drugs, alcohol, and crime. Jade secretly is seeing Derrick behind her parent's backs.

It's not until Dylan and Jade see God working in their families that they begin to turn around. This is the first thing that I see that we can learn from them. We should not have to see God working in someone else to let Him work in our lives as Christians. When we become saved, the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us. With Him inside of us, we should desire to follow God and do what He loves. Galatians 5:25 says, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

The next lesson I see is both in Jade and Derrick's "relationship" and in the relationship between Dylan and Shane's son Tyler. In the beginning of the movie, Jade was very interested in Derrick, while her father, Nathan, wanted nothing to do with him. Later, when Derrick was caught with the leaders of Gangster Nation, the two swapped places. Jade wanted nothing to do with Derrick, and Nathan wanted to be there to show the love of Christ to Derrick. Where did this change come? Well, Jade learned to trust both her earthly father and her heavenly father (Hebrews 12:9). Nathan wanted to be a mentor to Derrick, something that had helped rescue him from the life that Derrick was now leading. Proverbs 13:20 says, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Derrick had been a companion of fools, but God gave him a wise man to follow in Nathan Hayes. 

When Shane went to prison, he asked Adam to help take care of Tyler. If you read the novel, Dylan took to Tyler and treated him like a little brother. God gave him another chance to be an example to a younger person. Dylan missed this with his sister Emily, but allowed God to work through him and influence Tyler. 

The lesson I want you to see here is that God has given us an opportunity to influence other people. We can take advantage of this opportunity and change the world we live in by influencing the next generation for Christ. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Someday I hope to post another study that I did, titled "The Art of Mentoring" which goes into more detail on this subject.

Tomorrow I will be continuing the Portrait of Christ Series, which will now be posted each Sunday, rather than sometime during the week.

Photo Sources:

1: http://www.courageousthemovie.com/_dvdimages/_stills/nathanstepsin.jpg

2: http://www.courageousthemovie.com/_dvdimages/_stills/runningtogether.jpg