Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day.

A few years ago, I settled in for a movie night and the romantic comedy He’s Just Not That into You unfolded on the flat screen. The story followed the somewhat interconnected and relational dysfunction of nine people for 129 minutes. As the credits neared, the narrator finally divulged the movie’s thesis.

“Finding true love is the exception to the rule, the unexpected twist in life’s third act . . .  Maybe we are so focused on finding a happy ending, we can’t learn how to read the signs . . . how to identify those who want us from those who don’t, the ones who will stay from the ones who will leave. Maybe a happy ending doesn’t include a wonderful guy. Maybe it’s you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over . . . maybe it’s just moving on.”

“Or maybe the happy ending is this. . . knowing that through all the unreturned phone calls, broken hearts, blunders and misread signals, pain and embarrassment, you never gave up hope” With the narrator’s final thought ringing in my ears, the music score surfaced and ended poignantly.

“Save me”

How does this statement on 21^st century love and life fit on a ministry blog? Glad you asked. This picture of dysfunctional love and life is on daily display, front and center in the main gallery of our culture’s life flow. To a great extent, what Christian’s would call a broken life has become normal life of the dominant, post-Christian, post-modern social order we call contemporary. This new normal is the culture we, as Christ followers, are called to engage.

As Christ’s follows we are called to disciple the nations, not to separate ourselves from this emotionally damaged generation. When we do, we say to the world around us that we are somehow better, and by comparison the hurting person is somehow less. This isn’t the way Christ interacted with his world, and we are called to be like Him. Right?

Yet even in the movie’s sadly narcissistic and damaged conclusion, the writer sowed a small seed of truth. Life isn’t about the happy ending, or about what you get out of a relationship. Life is about finding wholeness. After that pearl of great price is unearthed and understood, a person is ready to share that life, and his or her own, with another. Thereby we become a blessing, instead of demanding to be somehow fulfilled and completed by another.

[Tweet “Before we can give love we have to receive Love.”]

As Christ followers, we know the source of Love. We know personally the One who will genuinely love and never leave. We meet in closed circles to discuss Him, learn about Him, and make sure we are really part of His group.

Yet the world is still wondering, wandering . . . lost and needing to be saved.

Will we break out of our comfort zones? When will those outside the walls of our churches hear that real love is not the exception to the rule? When will they see? When will we go and tell them . . . with our lives, our actions and our words?