A profound question

Someone recently asked me who my favorite superhero is; I answered Spider-Man.  Later, this person asked which version of Spider-Man is my favorite, and I said the Tobey Maguire-led films (incidentally, both answers thrilled this person).  Did you realize that the first Spider-Man film will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next year?  It’s true.  It was May 3rd, 2002 that “Spider-Man” was released.  This realization absolutely shocked me – and made me feel old.  Tobey’s Spider-Man inspires me to this day.  To quote Peter Parker’s own words when he was talking to Mary Jane Watson, his example helps me “know what kind of man [I] want to be.”  I am an unashamed fan of the whole trilogy (yes, even “Spider-Man 3”, although I know it had some glaring issues).

At this point, you know I could become a fanboy and talk about this beloved superhero movie in such precise detail it would become tiresome after a while.  So let’s not do that.  However, that said, there’s an important quote to help springboard us to a vitally important topic.  It was actually in another Spider-Man universe (2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” with Andrew Garfield), where Peter Parker’s teacher makes quite the statement.  She said, “I had a professor who liked to tell his students that there were only 10 plots in all of fiction.  Well, I’m here to tell you he was wrong.  There is only one: “Who am I?”

That’s a profound question.  It may inspire me to hear Tobey Maguire speaking these final words of “Spider-Man”: “Whatever life holds for me, I will always remember these words: ‘with great power, comes great responsibility.’  This is my gift, my curse.  Who am I?  I’m Spider-Man.” (Cue Danny Elfman’s “Spider-Man” theme song, as the end credits roll)  But who am I?  Who is this person writing to you in this blog today in 2026?  This brings me to a wonderful sermon that Jonathan Evans once delivered.  In it, he brought up another film as an illustration; it was so powerful I want to visit it with you today. 

Evans spoke of the film “The Lion King”; in the movie, Simba was excited to follow in his father, Mufasa’s footsteps, and rule as king one day, but his Uncle Scar, murdered his own brother; Mufasa was dead, and to make matters worse, Scar lied to Simba and said that it was Simba’s fault he was gone.  This led to decades of Simba running away from purpose and responsibility.  “But then” as Jonathan Evans described it in the sermon, “his father came back to [Simba] to remind him… ‘You need to remember who you are.’  And then it reverberates, ‘remember, remember, remember,’ that’s when I got goose bumps.” 

Simba, as Jonathan Evans so eloquently put it, “remembers that he is a child of the king.”  This inspired him to face his painful past; doing so leads to discovering the truth: he was not responsible for his father’s passing.  Ultimately, Scar is defeated, and Simba takes his place as king.  Now, at this point, I do want to state this clearly for the record: I am grateful for the godly example of both my father and mother.  I miss my dad to this moment, and I want to walk in his footsteps.  And frankly, I can’t imagine my life without my mother.  Ultimately, however, who I am isn’t answered by my heritage.  So, who am I?  I’m Kevin.  I’m a child of the King, through faith in Jesus.  

God bless,

Kevin