The Not-So Ultimate Gift

One of my favorite movies of the last decade is The Ultimate Gift based upon Jim Stovall’s best selling book.  Completed in 2006, this movie centers around Jason Stevens, a pampered rich kid who never had to work a day in his life.  When his grandfather, Red Stevens dies, he is left with a series of 12 tasks called gifts.  Thinking riches are attached, Jason slowly begins to develop motivation to complete these assignments.  What Jason doesn’t realize, this wild goose chase ends up transforming his life from a spoiled brat into a responsible, self reliant man.

Unfortunately, I think I am living out this movie without any cameras, riches or progress.  My first assignment is the gift of unemployment which was bestowed upon me last February.  Inspired to complete a movie God placed in my mind, I spent hundreds of hours, often burning the midnight hour to finish a 90 page script.  A few temporary jobs later, rejection letters galore and daily road blocks, I am back where I started, faced with editing my script, redoing my resume and finding a permanent job.  Like the boy that cried wolf, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, each day I experience is a not so ultimate gift.

The only thought I can grasp is that maybe all the strange circumstances I have encountered will make a great book one day like Bill Murray’s cross country trek in Larger Than Life with an elephant.  Hollywood can’t make up all of my bizarre happenings I have experienced: an undetective defect in my resume, a demon possessed computer, dead cell phones, false prophet encounters, sure thing leads that don’t materialize and following visions from my dreams without any results.  Despite my complaining, its only been 15 months, a far cry from Israel wandering in the wilderness.  If David had to wait for several years to become king of Israel, I guess I can suck it up until my not-so ultimate gift becomes the gift of work.

by Jay Mankus