This article was written by a 26 yr old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who's in grad school for her MBA. What a GREAT perspecitve..👍🏽
My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!
I'm sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to "fix" the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.
I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook's, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we've become completely blind to it.
Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don't give them a second thought.
We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!
Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??
Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, "An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity."
Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.
When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I've ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.
My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let's just say I didn't have the popular opinion, but I digress.
Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.
People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they've never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.
Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn't live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn't see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.
We don't know what it's like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don't have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it's spreading like a plague."
Passion of The Christ🇻🇦🩸
“Mel Gibson warned actor Jim Caviezel that playing the character of Christ was going to be very difficult and that if he accepted, he most likely would be marginalized by Hollywood.
Caviezel asked for a day to think about it and his response to Mel who was funding and directing the movie was: "I think we have to make it, even if it is difficult." And something else, my initials are J.C., and I am 33 years old. "I didn't realize that until now."
Mel responded with “You're really scaring me you know.”
During filming, Jim Caviezel who plays the part of Jesus lost 45 pounds, he was struck by lightning, he was accidentally struck twice during the scourging scene leaving a deep 14-inch scar, he dislocated his shoulder when the cross was dropped into the hole with him on the cross. He then suffered pneumonia and hypothermia from being nearly naked with only a loin cloth on the cross for endless hours. The crucifixion scene alone took 5 weeks of the 2 months of shooting.
His body was so stressed and exhausted from playing the role that he had to undergo two open heart surgeries after the filming production.
Jim explained, “I didn’t want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus. Conversions will happen through that.”
Almost like a clairvoyant prediction many amazing things happened.
Pedro Sarubbi, who played Barabbas, felt that it was not Caviezel who was looking at him, but Jesus Christ himself, as he played that role he said of Caviezel, “His eyes had no hatred or resentment towards me, only mercy and love."
Luca Lionello, the artist who played Judas, was an avowed atheist before shooting began. He eventually converted, and baptized his children.
One of the main technicians working on the film was a Muslim converted to Christianity.
Some producers said they saw actors dressed in white they didn’t recognize during one of the filming sessions, and when they reviewed the recordings they realized they couldn’t see them in that footage.
The Passion of the Christ is the highest grossing US religious as well as the highest R-rated film of all time, with $370.8 million! Worldwide, it grossed $611 million.
More importantly, it has reached 100’s of millions of people around the world.
Mel Gibson paid $30 million out of his own pocket for the production of the film because no studio would take on the project.
Today Jim Caviezel simply and boldly proclaims his faith in Christ, and the miracle it was for him to represent Christ as an actor and a greater believer of Christ because of this experience.
“though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,”
Hebrews 5:8-9 NKJV
I was in Bible college the week before 9/11.
Testimony service. Folding chairs. Fluorescent lights. Mandatory attendance.
Everyone expected the usual: clean stories, safe sins, spiritual résumés.
Then a tattooed giant walked to the front with his wife.
Former heroin addict. Former bouncer.
She’d worked the streets. Met him through her pimp.
Both of them gripping Bibles like flotation devices.
They sang. Badly.
Then he preached for five minutes.
No polish. No structure. No seminary cadence.
The hermeneutics professor winced.
The English teacher checked the clock.
But the altar filled.
Heaven moved while the educated missed it.
That moment never left me.
Because it exposed something most Christians don’t want to admit:
God does His best work in people who are still a mess.
That’s why Jelly Roll scares the industry.
Pills. Prison. Years burned down.
Then he grabbed the Grammy mic and said the one name you’re not supposed to say out loud if you want to keep a career.
“I love you, Lord.”
The crowd cheered.
The suits froze.
They always do.
Because God isn’t finished with him yet.
And unfinished people are dangerous.
Moses wasn’t Moses overnight.
He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Rage took over.
Looked left. Looked right. No witnesses.
So he killed him.
Buried the body in the sand.
Forty years later he’s still running when the bush burns. Still seeing blood on his hands.
“Who am I?” he asks.
God sends him anyway.
Not from murderer to hero.
From murderer to man still being worked on.
Paul didn’t become Paul overnight either.
Stephen preached. Rocks flew. Skulls cracked.
Coats piled at Saul’s feet while he approved.
Years later, after writing half your New Testament, he’s still begging God about a thorn.
God doesn’t say, “You’re finished.”
He says, “My grace is sufficient.”
Your Bible reeks of in-progress redemption.
Exodus doesn’t hide the murder.
Acts doesn’t hide the coats.
KJV. No polish. No PR team.
That tattooed couple went home after chapel.
Monday came. Cravings stayed. Memories stayed.
God stayed.
Jelly Roll will wake up tomorrow with the same demons and the same industry pressure to shut up.
God will still be working.
You’re not disqualified.
You’re under construction.
Same clay. Same Potter. Same wheel.
Build anyway. Fall anyway. Get up anyway.
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