I love this scene. One might say that Walken was being coerced into cooperating with the gunman. However, by simply refusing to comply, Walken defies coercion. When the gunman argues with him about it, Walken defies influence. Of course Walken might pay for his intransigence with his life. Nonetheless, he has rendered both coercion and influence useless for changing his behavior.
Once obese human beings achieve weights of approximately 1000 pounds, they are generally unable to walk or even fit through the door of their room. Yet they require many thousands of calories of food each day to maintain their incredible girth. Clearly someone is complicit by purchasing, preparing, and presenting food to the bed bound person. Yet, this sort of extreme obesity is definitely life threatening. Bathing and using the toilet require a great deal of help from others. All sorts of complications and discomforts accrue to the obese person.
Why would the patient's helpers continue to help the patient maintain this wretched existence? For reasons that vary, they are unwilling to tell the patient no when they demand or even just request the massive amounts of food and special care. The helpers are often family members who love the patient and long for them to be restored to health. Yet they do not make simple changes that will enable the patient to lose weight.
Coercion and even influence are real, but the means to render them ineffective are available to any human with a "free will". We all possess the incredible power to refuse to cooperate.
Of course, a strong adversary can force us to our knees. But then, we have not really yield to their demands. Our body has been forced into a position we disagree with, but our minds remain uncompliant.
Even brutal beating and even torture may hurt us so much that we speak agreement or some sort of information. However, the pain is used to force the brain, mouth, and lips to move somewhat like the physical force might be used to force us to our knees. Our will and some portion of our mind are not yet conquered.
It is humbling to consider that we often say that we were forced to do something or convinced to do something that is against our will, and yet realize that the option to say, or at least think, no was always an option we had available.
Matthew 5:37 New International Version (NIV)
37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
When we comply despite or desire to resist, we are making some sort of bargain with ourselves. We hope that in the overall scheme of things, we will benefit more by agreeing than we would by resisting. For example, we hand our wallet to an armed robber in hopes that compliance will result in less disruption to our life than would resistance. In a sense, we are making a bargain with ourselves. We believe that we have escaped more onerous costs by simply handing the wallet to the thief.
We actually have no ability to forecast the future well enough to ensure that the bargain we have made will provide the desired outcome. In the case of a robbery, the thief may decided to kill us despite our compliance. Alternatively the loss of the wallet may start a chain of events that leads to consequences far more dire than we could have imagined. For example, losing our identification documents might result in our being falsely imprisoned, leaving our family to suffer greatly before the matter can be resolved. Or the emboldened robber may decide that our compliance denotes that we are an easy mark that should be subjected to more and more onerous demands or other misdeeds.
Often we say yes, when we want to say no, simply because we want to avoid the unpleasantness of experience dismay or anger on the part of the person who has made the request. If we seek to avoid all manner of unpleasantness and avoid all sorts of confrontation, no matter how mild, our lives become unbearable.
We will benefit from realizing that saying no is always an option. We will benefit even more if we choose wisely as to when to exercise the option to say no.
Only God can see the bigger picture and comprehend the future consequences of our decsions. Let us be quick to turn to him for guidance. If we are not aware of direct guidance when we ask for it, let us fall back on what we know to be true from our experience, our limited wisdom, and our understanding of God's will as revealed to us in Bible study, Godly teaching, and Godly examples. We can rest in the knowledege that God will honor our desire to be like Him. If we fail, he can help us to recover and to do better in the future. As we trust in him as our savior, we are assured of the ultimate resolution of this life's difficulties: eternity with God. A renewed body and spirit. No more crying, pain, illlness or death.
