Ben Afleck has seen and done it all on the silver screen. “Batman.” “The Accountant.” “Pearl Harbor.” “The Sum of All Fears.” “Armageddon.” And don’t forget “Good Will Hunting.”
He’s also spent a lot of time on the front pages of the tabloids. Lots of women. Lots of booze. Lots of ups and downs and sideways. Lots of pain for Ben, for Jennifer, their kids, lots of folks.
You may also have heard Afleck has a new movie out, “The Way Back.” It’s about a guy struggling with alcohol. He was a great basketball player as a kid. Now he finds himself asked to come back and coach. I won’t ruin the ending for you, but it is a highly autobiographical work of art.
But here’s what you may not know: Afleck has found faith:
“The idea that God — Jesus — loves us and forgives us, all of us, everybody — all the people that you know and think are great and all the people that you wanna judge and be angry at,” he said in a recent interview, according to Faithwire’s Tre Goins-Phillips.
“So if God loves all of us and encourages us all to love one another and not to judge one another, to forgive one another, I find that incredibly moving, because that’s really God setting an example for us for how we might be,” he said.
Having been blessed with sobriety since 1991, I have a particular interest in Afleck’s journey, but it’s one that should inspire all of us, with or without addiction problems. Goins-Phillips has much more on this new life Afleck found on his way back.
“…and not to judge one another” OK, not a Bible scholar. OK, haven’t even read more than a few passages over the years. However, is this really true? We’re not supposed to judge one another? “Judge not or ye be judged!”? That’s sounds pretty stupid to me. Judging people is what builds society. It’s what sets norms of behavior. Without judgement, our society would be chaos.
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When Jesus says “Judge not lest you be judged,” He’s referring to hypocrisy, not the judicial system.
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I have always wondered why I was given the gift of sobriety when so many others continued to suffer.
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So you can help them? I’ve always heard in the rooms that the best thing to do when you’re too focused on your own problems is to help another drunk with his or hers.
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