Choice

After I wrote my blog yesterday, I had this strong urge to watch Chaos Theory, a movie that came out in 2008. I hadn't seen the trailer for it, but it had come up on my Instant View on Netflix. So, without knowing what the movie was about, I watched it. I got really into it, and was enjoying waiting to see how it all turned out at the end. As the climax passed and I was hoping for the story to have a happy ending, the main character, Frank, suddenly started talking about forgiveness. He said, "How do I forgive her?"

Huh, I thought. That's a...coincidence.... Or maybe it wasn't.

Before I had even started the movie, I thought about 1 Corinthians 13. I thought that it may be a good chapter to meditate on while I was asking Jesus to help me understand forgiveness.

I'm watching this movie that turns out to be about forgiveness, and moving past mistakes that we make that hurt other people in our lives. I know that I can't punish other people for being human. I know that I can't punish myself. Other people shouldn't try to punish me either.

The movie is wrapping up, and Frank seems to have everything kinda figured out. He says, "...it turns out that there are few things more chaotic than the beat of a human heart. Its beating up, slowing down. Pretty face, flight of stairs. It's always changing depending on what's happening out there. It's an erratic son of a b****. But underneath all of that bump-da-bump mess, there is in fact a pattern, the truth, and it's love. Most important thing about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making it the least random act in the entire universe. It transcends blood, it transcends betrayal and all the dirt that makes us human."

By now, I'm gawking at the screen, and swiping any thought that watching this movie was a coincidence off the deck.

I can't possibly expect myself to love others as Jesus does, but I know that I can make the choice every day to love others anyway. I can walk it out, and learn, and trust Jesus to keep turning me into something that I am currently not.

And I can pick up my Bible and read, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal..."