Provided by: JesusFilmMedia.org
Greenlit by Antoy Grant

Lanuage: ENGLISH
Length: 7 mins

A man cleans and cares for a child’s bedroom. But his daughter is at a bar drinking. She remembers how she stole from him and ran away from home. The father remembers his little girl. A tin can slides across the bar in front of the daughter.

In a memory, the man and his daughter play with the tin cans, talking to one another. But a man sits next to the daughter at the bar and slides the tin can away from her. They drink together and she goes home with him. She feels awful and runs back to her apartment.

The father wakes up and makes another tin can. Attaching it to a beautiful red kite, he sends it soaring into the air. It lands in the daughter’s apartment and they try to talk to one another. But it’s hard to hear so far away.

They walk toward each other, cutting the yarn and re-attaching it to get closer and clearer. The daughter finally finds herself on a bus. The dad waits at a bus stop. They both remember the good times and the bad. When the bus rolls to a stop, she almost gets off the bus. They smile at each other. The father’s happy to see her. But she drops the can and gets back on the bus. There, in her seat, is another tin can.

What happens to the girl when she runs away?

What does the daughter want in the end? What do you think keeps her from getting off the bus?

Have you ever wanted to reconcile with someone, but couldn’t?

This short film is not intended to directly communicate the gospel, but to facilitate a conversation that reveals our need for the gospel. Think about how your own story and the stories of those you may be watching with connects with the story of the film and the story of Jesus.

This story is inspired by a story that Jesus told and is recorded in the Bible. It is the story of the Prodigal Son and is found in Luke 15:11-32.

The story, or parable, is about a father and his two sons. The younger son would rather have his father’s things than a relationship and takes half of his inheritance. He runs off and spends it wildly in a foreign land. Soon, he’s penniless, friendless, and about to die in a gutter.

The younger brother remembers how well even his father’s servants were treated. He decides to go home and ask to be a servant in his father’s house. When he returns he’s surprisingly greeted with love and joy by his father and accepted back into the family.

The older brother gets angry when the father accepts the younger brother back so easily. He’s followed the rules his entire life and he thinks he deserves more love and credit from the father.

No matter what we have done in our life, God is seeking us out and wants a personal relationship with us. Whether we have rebelled like the younger son in Luke (and the daughter in the film) or if we are like the older brother who is trying to earn and manipulate the father’s favor with good behavior, He still wants us to be in relationship with Him.

To have this personal relationship we must acknowledge that we are sinners and that our sin separates us from God. There is nothing we can do on our own to reach God. Only God’s Son Jesus was able to bridge that gap for us through his death and resurrection. We must individually accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord in order to know God personally.

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