My impressions of scenes from the movie, 'A Great Awakening' set in the 1700s George Whitefield, a man touched by God, through the kindness and compassion of a group of men, one of whom washed his feet, joins their Holiness Club. After reading Scripture, the end of Psalm 139 in particular: “Search me, O God and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” sits under a tree, writing to his mother. He tells her that she won't hear from him for a while because needs to fast and seek God.
Time passes and on a stormy day, his friend, John Wesley pounds on his bedroom door, begging him to come out as he's not eaten for a month and needs to get out in the fresh air and bathe. After a few minutes, he breaks into the room, and sees George lying on the bed, clasping his Bible, quoting the verses that so gripped his heart. He begs George to come and eat something. He leaves the room holding his nose because of the stench, George stumbles out of the room fleeing outside into the rain. He cries out to God, “Why isn't working?!” He collapses, falling to the ground.
After he is brought back to his room and a doctor has examined him, telling John that he saved his life by intervening when he did and to keep feeding him, John sits on a chair next to his bed, and George turns away, facing the wall, asking him why he interfered, saying he wanted to make God proud of him. “Make God proud?” John asks. He then reminds him from Scripture how when Jesus was baptized, God spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” He tells George that this was before Jesus had done any of His miracles – it was because Jesus was His Son. And that it's Christ in George whom God sees and that God loves him.
Later the men are walking through a prison, ministering to those inside, giving them food. John tells George they are being Christ's hands and feet to them, and George asks, “Why not His voice? Why don't we read Scripture to them?” John replies that it would take a long time to read to all of them one at a time.
George is insistent that he be allowed to read to them. John hands him his Bible opened to the story of Nicodemus in John chapter three. He begins reading, his voice carrying loudly into the cells, as he has been trained as an actor. He walks through the prison, as he reads. When he gets to verse sixteen, his voice catches on the words, “God so loved,” and his eyes shimmer with tears.
They then come to a cell, where a bit of light is shining from a window high up in the wall. A thick chain is seen. George walks into the room asking for some water. John asks him what he's doing once it's brought and he tells him he's going to do for this prisoner what they had done for him. He kneels next to the prisoner gently washing his feet. Telling him of God's love, he asks, “Do you want to know this love?” The prisoner nods, his eyes filled with tears. George says, “Me too.”
In that moment my eyes well with tears as the scene plays out, George hugging the man who is filthy, his skin mottled and blotchy, from having been in the prison for so long, uncared for and unwashed. I see an act of worship as George realizes, from what he has read, that he needs to receive God's gift of love and salvation. Worship coming from a heart that sees his need, realizing that it's not works – fasting, denying himself to those works, that saves him, but receiving the love of God and surrendering to that love.
Scripture reference Psalm 139:23-24 KJV