Make The Cut

In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeon shares the noteworthy fact that most of the films that are nominated each year in the category of Best Picture at the Academy Awards are also nominated in the category of Best Film Editing. In fact, he writes,

….what most people don’t know is that the two awards are highly correlated: since 1981 not a single film has won Best Picture without at least being nominated for Film Editing. In fact, in about two-thirds of the cases the movie nominated for Film Editing has gone on to win Best Picture.

The point he is making is that good movies are good because they have good editors. When you watch a movie, you aren’t watching all of the raw footage that was shot. You are watching the result of an intense, deliberate painstaking process. To put this process in perspective, consider that Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther had over 500 hours of raw footage. However, the final movie was only 134 minutes long. That means less than 1 percent of the footage that was shot was seen in the film. The rest was edited out!

Film editing, McKeon writes, involves the “elimination of the trivial, unimportant, or irrelevant.” Instead of trying to “fit everything in”, the editor’s primary’s task involves the asking and re-asking of one crucial question: will this scene, character, or plot twist “make the movie better?” If not, it is edited out—it is cut. And here’s the takeaway: the better the cuts, the better the picture.

Although McKeon acknowledges that editing our lives is not as easy as editing a film, he contends (and I wholeheartedly agree) that some of the same principles apply. In order to maximize our God-given potential, fulfill our God-given purpose, and reach our God-given destiny, some editing or “cutting” must be done. In Mark 9:43-44, Jesus says

“If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

So here’s my question for you today: what (or who) needs to be cut from your life that is getting in the way of where God is trying to take you, do with you, or provide for you?

It is possible that you may not know the answer to that question. Finding the answer may require prayer, reflection and analysis. You may even need to seek counsel. But some of us already know the answer. We know what (or who) we need to cut. We just lack the courage or the desire to do it. However, failing to do so leads to tragic consequences.

There is no greater tragic figure in scripture that Jonathan, the great friend of David. David and Johnathan could not have been more unalike. David was poor; Jonathan was rich. David used slingshots; Jonathan used swords. David grew up tending sheep; Jonathan grew up in the palace. But love ignores distinctions, transcends boundaries, and stretches beyond time. And Jonathan loved David. And David knew it. When Jonathan died, David composed a song in 2 Samuel 1:26 in which he celebrated Jonathan’s friendship as “a miracle-wonder, a love far exceeding anything I’ve known—or ever hope to know.”

Unfortunately, their friendship was complicated by the fact that Jonathan’s father Saul considered David a rival to his throne and his legacy, and spent most of his life trying to eliminate him. However, Saul’s efforts were unsuccessful. At one point during his fathers’ long fruitless campaign to kill David, Jonathan had a vision. According to 1 Samuel 23:7, Jonathan comes to David and says:

…the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth.

Jonathan saw himself standing next to his friend. But that isn’t where he wound up. Instead of standing next to his friend, Jonathan wound up lying dead, on a battlefield, beside his father. His end was not a pretty picture. It certainly was not the picture that Jonathan had envisioned. The vision that Jonathan had did not come to pass because Jonathan could not or would not make the cut. His refusal to cut his relationship with his father not only cost him his relationship with his friend, but also the future that he had envisioned.

I completely understand why Jonathan didn’t make the cut. It’s the same reason why so many of us fail to make the cuts that we know we need to make: cutting hurts! But the truth is, not cutting what needs to be cut will eventually and probably hurt even more. Jim Rohn has said that “there are only two pains in life: the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.” If we will not endure the pain of cutting away what (or who) don’t need, we will experience the pain of missing out on what (or we) we do need.

The choice that confronted Jonathan will confront us all. We can’t have it all, do it all, or know it all. Like the film editor, we must ask and re-ask ourselves a crucial question: will this scene, character, or plot twist make my life better?" If not, it must be edited out—it must be cut.

And here’s the takeaway: the better the cuts, the better the life.