The Wisdom of Yoda

Posted On August 9, 2020

“Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding . . .”

Poverbs 3:13 NIV

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I thought it was about time I did a Star Wars post. And who better for us to learn from than the Jedi master himself. Throughout the Star Wars franchise, Yoda has shared many marvelous insights in his own unique way. We’ll examine some of his wisdom from a Christian perspective. Let’s warm up with these clips:

Be Like a Child

“Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”

Yoda, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

Jesus taught that we should become like little children in order to enter God’s kingdom. What did He mean? In an essay titled “Salvation in the New Testament” Reginald E. O. White explains that the problem of sin and the “sickness” of our souls originates in mankind’s rebelliousness. Jesus calls us to repentance, meaning He calls us to turn away from sin and turn back to God in humble remorse. God freely offers us salvation. We just have to accept it and depend on Him like a child depends on a parent. Reginald White states, “In Jesus’ openness toward and friendship with sinners, God’s loving welcome found perfect expression. Nothing was needed to win back God’s favor. It waited eagerly for man’s return . . . . The one indispensable preliminary was the change in man from rebelliousness to childlike trust and willingness to obey.”

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Luke 18:16-17 NIV

Focus on Today

“This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.”

Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

God wants us to depend on Him every day. He wants us to focus on Him and trust Him to take care of everything else. I admit this is sometimes hard for me. I identify a lot with Luke in this clip. I have had to work on keeping my attention here in the present. When God sent down daily manna to feed the Israelites as they wandered in the desert, He only sent enough for that day. The Israelites were instructed to gather only what they needed. They couldn’t hoard it. They had to be faithful in collecting it each day. James W. Goll in The Beginner’s Guide to Hearing God compares this to daily Bible reading. He says, “We must gather the Word as manna every day. Our portion today is only good for today. We cannot live off yesterday’s manna. If we do not eat today’s portion, we will have lack and need. But if we abide in His Word daily, we will have life within. . . . It’s an issue of obedience.” Jesus instructs us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11 ESV). We need to develop a daily habit of Bible reading and prayer so that we learn to depend on God every day. If we get stuck in the past or too focused on the future, we could miss out on the blessings God has in store for us today. Jesus says in Matthew 6:34 (TLB), “So don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.” Good advice!

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:24 ESV

Learn from Failure

“The greatest teacher, failure is.”

Yoda, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

This is a hard life lesson to learn, but it is so true. I have learned more from my failures and struggles than I have from any of my successes. The most important lesson I’ve learned is how to depend on God. Randy Alcorn in Seeing the Unseen describes the “chiseling effect” of our hardships. He says, “Over time, the experience of suffering can make us spiritually stronger, more dependent on God, and less fearful. It can also increase our effectiveness in talking to others about Christ.” God can use our hurts to help others, and He can use our struggles to shape us into the people He wants us to become. It is in our failures, our weakness, our utter hopelessness that we learn to find our success, our strength, and our hope in Him.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV

Commitment, Strength, Holiness, and Faith

Now to the main event. This clip is full of many memorable Yoda-isms. We’ll look at several of them.

Choose to Go All In

Yoda: “You must unlearn what you have learned.”
Luke: “All right, I’ll give it a try.”
Yoda: “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

C. S. Lewis talks about the “cost” of becoming a Christian. He reminds us that Jesus’ plan for us is to become perfect:

“The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect — until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

We are either in or out. There is no halfway option. Jesus wants all of me, not part of me, not the bit I can spare, but every single atom of my being. And He wants it all the time. He wants the same from you. He wants to transform us into the image of Himself, and this takes our full commitment — not to do the work ourselves, but to let Him do it . . . to be willing, when we fall on our faces, to let Him pick us back up and get back to work. He knows we will have moments of failure and parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed of, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t still want every bit of us. Jesus is all-powerful. He has already overcome sin and death. The only thing that can stop Him from transforming us is our unwillingness to fully commit to Him. As C. S. Lewis explains, “you must realise from the outset that the goal toward which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.” Jesus wants us to jump in with both feet. He wants the good parts of us and the bad. As a choir member, I have often had choir directors instruct us to sing out in rehearsal whether we know the notes or not. This is the only way to figure out what needs to be fixed before the performance. Jesus instructs us to do the same. Show Him your faults; in fact, give Him your faults. This is the only way He can fix them. Our path to perfection will take a lifetime, and it will only be accomplished if we fully embrace our perfect Savior.

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Revelation 3:15-16 NIV

We Have a Powerful Ally

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”

Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In Leviticus 19:2 (NIV) we are instructed, “‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” In 1 John 4:4 (MSG), we are told, “the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world.” As Randy Alcorn explains, “God is the reason we should be holy. But He’s also the empowerment for our holiness. Many of us are convinced we should be more holy, but we’ve gone about it wrong. To be holy in our strength, and for our glory, is to be distinctly unholy. To be holy in Christ’s strength and for His glory: that’s our calling and our joy.” God’s Spirit living in us is what gives us strength — strength to live the holy lives we are called to live. Our shortcomings are no match for God’s power.

“And David became more and more powerful, because the Lord Almighty was with him.”

1 Chronicles 11:9 NIV

We Are Luminous Beings

“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Anthony DeStefano describes the first time he saw a dead body. He was a young child attending the funeral of his beloved aunt who passed away from cancer. He remembers his conflicting feelings of love for his aunt and fear at seeing her body in the coffin. He explains, “I knew that even though it looked like her, it wasn’t her anymore. I knew that whatever it was that had made her my aunt was no longer there. And it was this knowledge that made her lifeless body so terrifying.” The point he makes in telling this story is that even as children we understand that there is more to us than just the “crude matter” of our physical bodies. We also have a spiritual part, an immortal soul. We are unique creations. As Anthony DeStefano points out, “Humans are able to recognize higher spiritual realities and take actions that directly contradict their physical well-being only because there’s a part of us that is spiritual and understands that the spirit is just as important as the body, and that it must be nurtured — even sometimes at the expense of the body, even sometimes at the expense of physical life itself.” Charles F. Stanley reminds us that when we start to feel burned out or confused in our spiritual walk, we may be forgetting to rely on the Holy Spirit to nourish our souls. The Holy Spirit is our guide on this journey. When we try to rely on ourselves instead of Him, we can get lost. Rev. Stanley says, “Therefore, you need to stop trying to do everything by your own power. Obey what the Holy Spirit is guiding you to do right away, and then watch and enjoy the wonderful Spirit-filled life that unfolds before you.”

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”

1 Corinthians 6:19 NIV

With Faith, Nothing Is Impossible

Luke: “I don’t, I don’t believe it.”
Yoda: “That is why you fail.”

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Faith is critical in our Christian walk. Without it, we will fail. That’s why it is important to nourish it. C. S. Lewis explains:

“Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. . . . Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. The first step is to recognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Netiher this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The good news is that if we are struggling with faith, we can ask for more. God will supply all our needs, even our need for more faith in Him. This is amazing! When we trust in Him, He can accomplish anything through us — nothing is impossible!

“Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment. Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we drive it out?’
He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.'”

Matthew 17:18-20

This week’s Scripture passages remind us of the wisdom in the lessons we have learned. There is a printer-friendly pdf version below the image. Just for fun, I have also included a video of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s song “Yoda.” Enjoy, and remember that even if the force isn’t with you, God always is!

“When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
And he said to the human race,
‘The fear of the Lord — that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.'”

Job 28:25-28 NIV

References:

• Alcorn, Randy. Seeing the Unseen, Expanded Edition: A 90-Day Devotional to Set Your Mind on Eternity. Multnomah, 2017.
• DeStefano, Anthony. The Invisible World: Understanding Angels, Demons, and the Spiritual Realities That Surround Us. Kindle ed., Doubleday, 2011.
• Goll, James W. The Beginner’s Guide to Hearing God. Regal from Gospel Light, 2008.
• Lewis, C. S. “Mere Christianity.” The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, Harper San Francisco, 2002, pp. 1-177.
• Stanley, Charles F. 30 Life Principles Study Guide: A Study for Growing in Knowledge and Understanding of God. Thomas Nelson, 2008.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Dir. George Lucas. 20th Century Fox, 2002.
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Dir. Irvin Kershner. 20th Century Fox, 1980.
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Dir. Rian Johnson. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2017.
• “The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is – Yoda.” YouTube, Uploaded by My Favorite Quotes, 13 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvH3TQ4HpFU.
• “Truly Wonderful the Mind of a Child is.” YouTube, Uploaded by $The OneWhoGotAway$, 5 September 2022, https://youtu.be/FFvSw_HbmPM?si=ZMYDIqU-iTT_hm3z.
• “‘Weird Al’ Yankovic – Yoda.” YouTube, Uploaded by xTkAx, 10 July 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUMCyAR6U0.
• White, Reginald E. O. “Salvation in the New Testament.” The Portable Seminary, edited by David Horton and Ryan Horton, Bethany House, 2006, pp. 180-181.
• “Yoda Explains the Force to Luke – from Empire Strikes Back.” YouTube, Uploaded by Beejel Parmar, 12 September 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxCR2bFWHxM.
• “Yoda observes a new youngling.” YouTube, Uploaded by Medbob, 29 December 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWtOTc84LkI.

Images:

• Yoda featured image by Ribastank from Pixabay
• Fire image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay
• Ice image by Simon Steinberger from Pixabay
• Thunderstorm image by FelixMittermeier from Pixabay
• Spirit image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
• Mountain image by Bessi from Pixabay