Grace and royalty have the right to you claim you: A lesson from "Kingdom of Heaven."
Monday, December 31, 2012 at 9:13AM 
"I'm your priest, Balian; and I tell you, God has abandoned you...The village does not want you." - village priest
Balian [Orlando Bloom] and Godfrey, Baron of Ibelin [Liam Neeson]
"Murder. I've done murder." - Balian the Blacksmith
Balian [Orlando Bloom] is a blacksmith, whose wife has died of suicide. Unbeknownst to Balian, she was beheaded post-humously [for being a suicide] by the wicked village priest who, rather than consoling the grieving Balian, assures him that God has abandoned him and the village has rejected him.
Balian's true father [Liam Neeson], a man he's never met, is Godfrey, Baron of Ibelin; and has just come to the village to reach out to Balian and to invite him to follow him into the Crusades, joining the baron's small band of warriors. Balian refuses to go. He has no desire to know his father, Baron of Ibelin; nor to move beyond the world he knows. After all, he's just buried his wife.
The crime
The scene escalates as Balian discovers that the wicked town priest has cut off his wife's head just before burial, claiming it was punishment for the sin of suicide and that his wife would certainly be in hell for it. In a fit of striken horror, Balian runs a sword through the priest, killing him. After murdering the priest, leaving his blacksmith shop to burn, Balian flees town to see if he can catch up with his father, Baron of Ibelin, on the road.
The Law would claim him
Balian catches up with his father, Baron of Ibelin, on the road, and confesses the murder to him. But the law has sent a hunting party for Balian. The law has come for him so that he may face charges for murdering the priest. Even knowing his son's sin, his father still won't give him over to the Law; and they quickly discover themselves ambushed by the hunting party.
Half of the baron's warrior band is slain. When the dust settles, Balian reminds his father,
"They had the right to take me."
His father replies,
"And so do I."
Notice three things:
- Balian the blacksmith doesn't realize there is royalty in his blood.
- The Law will always try to claim you.
- Grace, his true Father, also has the right to claim him.
Reader Comments (1)
I've never blogged before but might like to try, however, might like to try. I did like what you had to say here but wanted to make a comment about something you said in your book Recover Your Wounded Heart.
Not sure if this is the correct forum, but heerre it goes.
On p. 133-134 you recall anincident. I relate to the assuming part. In the 80"s I got in trouble at work and when I was trying to explain to my boss I used the word assume. My boss said, "You know what assuming does.....it makes an ass out of you and me....just lately in my readings I came across the thought that this is one way the enemy gets to us....so its interesting to read your thoughts about this.
However, this is not my main reasone for writing. It was your comment about ...It's common knowledge...towards the end of the page. Thought I would throw this out....I was tvery quiet, unassertive, unopionated, depressed, and ruminated alot. I read as much as I could trying to
"fix ." I took Psychology seriously, however, I really believed The Word was the truth and it would set me free. But thought it was my responsibilty to change myself. One day I came to see or belive that good communication was how people got well. I believed what psychological research said regarding the 80-90 % of communication being body language. I came to believe that before I took communication 101. However, I think I'm changing my mind. I've been married for a little over 38 years. It has been full of struggles. I think my communication has improved but now I'm very talkative at times and as my husband says I don't "take a pause." "i'm much more vocal (only with my husband) when I'm upset, and will usually say "I don't like how you're talking to me or I don't like your tone." I used to stuff it (at times still do) but I think I'm better. The big thing is I'm not so resentfull...I think many times my anger turned into bitterness...which is a very miserable place to be. That could be another whole converstion in itself as it relates to "sin."
Now I'm getting to my main point about your comment on p. 133 about the 90%. We've been separated a number of times over the years as he was in the reserves and then active duty. HOwever, the last two times we've really used the computer to communicate. I joke with people that we have great converstions because we can't see each others body language or interrupt
each other. We're forced to hear/listen to what each other is saying and not be thinking about what we want to say or reacting to a red button word, a tone, a facial expression. I've come to believe that what I thought was anger regarding my husband has been a huge amount of fear and hurteven though he looks and sounds very angry. Part of my reaction, I think, goes back to my father's anger...my sisters and I and I'm sure my mother were very afraid of him when he was angry. I handled it by avoiding him which worked...his anger was not vocal...I don't think he had learned how to express himself. Plus I believe because of his religious beliefs that he believed it ws a sin to be angry so he let the anger build up and then he exploded. All that to say that my way of handling anger was to avoid which did not work at all with my husband. I can remember when we were first married, him saying, "how can you sit there as cool as a cucmber," when I was actually petrified and had no words in my head." Now I have lots of words, but believe arging is not the answer and get confused. Body language and being reactionary gets in the way of us hearing what each other is saying. Both of us, especially me, have a hard getting past our feelings, not being defensive, and letting go...all of which interfers with communication. He has a much better since of humour than I do, but my sence of humor has seemed to come out when emailing.
I hope you've been able to follow my thoughts...it's hard to go back in this forum to edit etc.
Plus I don't want to take the time right now....I'ld rather just blirt it out and go from there....I write as I think...so I have lots of run on sentences which I'm sure is why it's difficult to follow me when I'm talking. Plus I overthink and analize....I've already put in over an hour.
I've been really wanting to touch base as I'm so excited about your podcasts, your book, and people you've interviewed. Obviously I have bought your book plus two more...one of which I'm sending to my husbamd. I also listen to Growing In Grace and am starting to watch Mcvey's videos of 101 Lies. My husband says I'm a seeker...which used to upset me till I asked him what he meant by that...which turned out to meansomething different than what I thought he meant. I have been seeking/searching the last few years for anything on grace I could find. A few years ago I came across Joseph Prince which really set me on fire. However, through Truface (which I got from church) and seaching things out on the internet i found you, Growing in Grace, and Mcvey. Initially, I was very excited about The Cure but as I've looked into it I feel it's developed around looking at and talking about sin....I've been down that road and it made me very introspective and depressed. So I'm very excited about finding some people here in the US (as Joseph Prince and The New Creation Church are in Singapore), that I can communicate with; that started dialogueig and putting into words (about the same time I began my search persueing the grace message) that I didn't have, but believed and had been trying to make sence of.
One last thing....YOu had a number of blogs with GAry from Brave Heart which I also looked in to; Have you ever done anything with his program. I'm seriously looking at doing the online program.
I also ordered your study guide for Recover Your Good Heart. I'm extremely excited and hopeful about what The Lord has in store for me.
The really last thing...a week or so ago when I was leaving my sisters and my little niece who is seven or so ( but looks like she is 4-5) started out running after her brother who is about three times her size ( they race down the sidewalk to try and keep up with the car).....said, "Good by, and "Be brave." Isn't that wonderful.
Thank you so much for taking the time to develop the Real grace messsage.
After all this I hope I click the right buttons so you get it :).