Four Great Lessons from Christopher Robin (With a Spiritual Twist)

Last updated on: August 2, 2018 at 8:17 pm by Paul Asay

Four Great Lessons from Christopher Robin (With a Spiritual Twist) 2018-08-02T16:19:16-06:00 Paul Asay

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Ewan McGregor and Winnie-the-Pooh from Disney’s Christopher Robin, photo courtesy the Disney trailer

Prioritize

Christopher Robin has a Very Important Job and a briefcase full of Very Important Things to prove it. As a mid-level manager working for a prominent luggage company, he’s been tasked to trim 20% out of the company budget. And even though he planned to spend the weekend with his wife, Evelyn, and daughter, Madeline at the family cottage in Sussex, he’ll need to punt his plans and spend those days working.

It’s no surprise to Evelyn, who didn’t even bother to pack a suitcase for him. “Your life is happening now—right in front of you!” she scolds him. Madeline, naturally, is deeply disappointed. Christopher is losing his family, date by broken date, and he knows it. And even though he says that his wife and daughter are the most important things in the world to him, Christopher’s Very Important Things—his business homework, essentially—exposes the sad separation between what he says and how he acts.

When Pooh shows up (silly old bear that he is), he shows Christopher the dichotomy between his words and actions, suggesting something as simple as a balloon may have more value, in some ways, than all his papers. And when it comes to Madeline—well, Christopher Robin soon realizes that he’s been sending some terrible messages the little girl’s way. “I’ve been a father of very little brain,” he admits.

Christopher learns, in part, the same lesson that Martha learned in Luke 10, when Jesus came to visit she and her sister, Mary.

While Martha bustled about, serving and entertaining, Mary plopped down at Jesus’ feet to enjoy His company. When Martha complained, Jesus told her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary.” In John, we hear about how Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume, and when this time Judas takes issue—saying the perfume could’ve been sold and the money given to the poor—Jesus tells him, “the poor you always have with you, but you will not always have me.”

Jesus was talking about prioritization in these passages—specifically, prioritizing spending time with the Son of God over … well, anything else. I hope you’ll forgive me if I extend that message a bit to the folks that God’s put in our lives to love and care for. We should never take them for granted. We should honor them and spend time with them and let them know, by actions more than words, how important they are to us.

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