Facing the Giants is one of my favorite movies! It is quite encouraging and inspiring! If you’ve never watched it, I highly recommend it.
The movie begins with Head Coach Grant Taylor losing yet another football game. He is discouraged and defeated, as is his team. He can’t help but notice that many things in his life are falling apart. His income is barely enough to scrape by and his car barely runs.
Late one night he happens upon a meeting of some of the fathers of the high school where he coaches. They are discussing replacing Grant Taylor and are considering potential replacements. He goes home, depressed and ready to give up. But then he turns to God and asks Him to guide him and show him what he should do.
Shortly after this, a local man stops by and shares a Bible passage with Grant and tells him that God has big plans for his life! Grant is startled, to say the least, but he is encouraged! And that is where a remarkable story unfolds!
Facing the Giants
Grant begins to approach his problems with a fresh perspective and decides to share his new ideas with his football team. Instead of yelling at his team, he decides to set standards for them. He insists that in order to play on his football team their grades have to improve. They need to have nice attitudes rather than be disrespectful. They are surprised, to say the least!
Out on the football field, he tells a student to do the death crawl. This is a football exercise where one student has to crawl along the field without letting his knees touch the ground, all while another teammate is on his back. A fatiguing exercise to say the least!
As the student prepares to begin, the coach asks him “Will you give me your best?” The student acts rather cocky and responds, “yeah”. The coach asks again, “Really, your best? Your very best?” Again, the student is surprised but responds in much the same way, “yeah”. The coach continues, “Because I don’t want you to go out there and give me a half-hearted effort. I want your very best.”
Needless to say, this gets the attention of the whole team. The student begins the death crawl moving across the field with the teammate on his back. Before long, he slows and says he’s ready to quit. The coach reminds him that he promised to give him his very best and urges him on. Again, the student complains that it is hard, he’s ready to quit. The coach encourages him to not stop if he has anything left to give.
The student pushes on, grunting and groaning. The scene continues, the student ready to stop due to fatigue and burning muscles, and the coach encouraging him not to give up until he has nothing left to give. At last the student makes it to the end of the football team – having crawled much further than he had set out to. The lesson in that scene inspires me every time.
Soon the whole team is inspired by their coach to make changes to their attitudes and lives. Incredible things happen in the whole school due to one coach’s efforts to make a change in his own life. It truly is an inspiring story. So much encouragement and inspiration – and so much humor too! It is definitely a film you will want to watch with your whole family! It is available here: Facing the Giants DVD.
A Few of My Favorite Things
I like Facing the Giants because it is enjoyable and a good family film, but mostly I like it for the encouraging messages. Here are a few of my favorites:
At one point, Grant Taylor prays and tells God that he feels like he has giants of problems all around him. He asks God to help him fight his giants. Association is a helpful tool, so when I feel overwhelmed or like I have more going on than I can handle I think of those pressures as giants. Then I remember the movie and am reminded to ask God to help me fight those giants.
When the local man comes to encourage Grant early in the movie, he mentions a story about two farmers. Both of them prayed for rain, but only one of them prepared his field, the other waited to see if it would rain. “Which man trusted God,” the local man asked Grant, “the man who prepared for the rain, or the one who didn’t? You have to trust God by preparing for the rain – He will send it when He is ready.” This is such an excellent reminder to me in life as a whole – I want to be sure that I faithfully prepare for God to fulfill His promises!
The death crawl scene that I mentioned above is one of my favorites also. I love the reminder that we always have a bit more to give. Everything that we do is for God, so we should give every area of our life our very best. We can’t stop trying just because we’re tired of trying, we have to press on and give God our all!
Later in Facing the Giants, the subject of having a good attitude even when you don’t win a game or get things your way comes up. This is yet another excellent reminder for me! We must praise and love God whether things go the way we want them to or not!
An inspiring quote from Facing the Giants:
I want God to bless this team so much people will talk about what He did. But it means we gotta give Him our best in every area. And if we win, we praise Him. And if we lose, we praise Him. Either way we honor Him with our actions and our attitudes. So I’m asking you… What are you living for? I resolve to give God everything I’ve got, then I’ll leave the results up to Him. I want to know if you’ll join me.
What a film! Have you seen the movie? What are some of your favorite parts or lessons in it? I’d love it if you shared!
Until Next Time!
Hope.