Jack used this quote from Star Wars in today’s post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” (Princess Leia)
For many the entire Start Wars saga was always a thinly disguised tale of faith and religion. The battle of good vs. evil and the mysterious “Force” seeming to take their cues from various religious beliefs. It does not take a giant leap to imagine substituting the word God for Obe Wan Kenobi in the quote above or using “God” instead of “Force” in the phrase “May the Force be with you.”
Jack asked the question in his post, “Who is your Obe Wan?” Within the context of characters in the Star Wars movies, he chose Yoda as his Obe Wan. Many men might identify with Obe Wan, or perhaps Luke Skywalker or maybe Hans Solo. Jack did write that Princess Leia was the most popular character of all.
In creating the Star Wars universe and saga, George Lucas took advantage of our need to find a way to equate God to things that we can see and experience. He turned our faith into the Force and gave faces to characters who might otherwise have been angels or spirits. He created the epic struggle of good vs. evil by creating a host of fallen angels that he called “the Dark Side.” Whether the Emperor or Darth Vader represented the Devil is open to question, since both were portrayed as evil personified.
The whole Star Wars phenomena is just one example of man’s need to try to put God and faith into some smaller, more familiar context that he can understand. The whole of religion is really man’s attempt to explain God and faith by creating structure, rules, and pageantry that the common person can relate to and practice. Most religions have developed elaborate explanations of what life after death will be like. There are many names for where we supposedly go – Heaven, Valhalla, Swarga Loka, Nirvana, Jannah, and Tiān are just a few of the places where people believe that souls go after death.
Man’s imagination is so limited that he must couch things like heaven in familiar terms and descriptions that he can understand. It is that mental barrier between what we can understand and what we can just accept and believe that holds man back from a better relationship with God. If, instead of Obe Wan Kenobe, we said and truly believed, “Help me God, you are my only hope”; we might experience the relationship with God that He has in mind for us. Trying to understand God and putting Him in our own small context is a manifestation of our own egos. It is that leap of faith that we take when we finally admit that “I don’t understand, but I believe” that clears the way for a direct relationship with God. One cannot understand “the peace that passes all understanding” by continuing to struggle to understand it. Just accept it.
So, make God your Obe Wan and the Force will be with you. Have a great week ahead. May God be with you.
NormsMilfordBlog 
Man’s search for God goes in many directions. The Christmas story of the birth of Jesus is one.