Sometime ago we watched a 1938 movie Pygmalion based on the play of the same name by George Bernard Shaw. You may be more familiar with the 1964 musical My Fair Lady (Pygmalion set to a musical score). The play finds roots in Greek Mythology and Ovid’s poem Metamorphosis. In this poem an artist and sculptor named Pygmalion falls in love with a statue of his own creation. According to the myth, Aphrodite grants Pygmalion’s wish that the statue come to life.

Watching the story unfold I thought of other movies that have a similar theme: Geppetto’s puppet Pinocchio comes to life, a chorus-line girl becomes a star in Singing in the Rain, Sandra Bullock’s character in Miss Congeniality has a similar feel, and 1987’s Mannequin. I am sure there are others.

While not comparing Professor Higgins character to God, I could not help but see the metamorphosis in Eliza Doolittle and the change that God’s Grace brings to us. The compassion shown her by Colonel Pickering and the discipline taught her by Professor Higgins took her from the streets selling flowers to the palace.

Paul says it this way, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14)

How is God’s grace changing you?

– Scott