Why We Keep Watching Love Stories
Love stories have become a staple among movie genres. They never fail to sell and it is probably because we are all, at some level, lovers on the inside.
Whether it is little children enamored by "Beauty and the Beast", persecuted lovers who carry the torch for classics like "Dr. Zhivago" and "Romeo and Juliet", or city dwellers captivated by the online love affair of "Sleepless in Seattle", we have all become easy prey to Hollywood's purveyors of love stories.
A Common Theme
What's funny about the whole thing is that the theme doesn't change and the message is the same:
Boy meets girl. Girl is from the rich part of town while the boy has a blue-collared background. But the chemistry is too much to handle and they just can't live without each other. For the "Twilight- couple Edward and Bella, the stakes are even higher as vampire and human love each other and the cost of their relationship is a matter of life and death.
In any case, whether it's "Twilight- or "The Notebook-, these movies are all about the great price that the pair had to pay to keep the valuable relationship.
Wired for Love
All of us fall for this theme because of the way God designed us. He created us wired on the inside with a longing desire to love and to be loved. We all want to be loved at this level: to have someone with so much to lose and yet are willing to trash all the comforts, privileges, fame and fortune just to be with us.
Our godly design makes us so attracted to love. This is the reason why we are so enticed by love stories. And there is no other story that paints a more beautiful picture of love than the Gospel which, at the heart of it, is a love story where God, the most special and important person in the universe, loved us so much that He willingly let go of all the comfort and security in heaven to come down to earth and be with us.
How This Affects Us
When we get this kind of love, our marriage takes on a very different meaning. We realize that we can love our spouses in this crazy way because of our godly design and, more importantly, since God first showed us how.
But unlike a 90-minute movie, God's love for us is eternal. It began even while we were being formed in our mother's womb and will outlast anything in all creation. And with the love we receive from God, we are now able to give to our spouses in turn.
It is only as we understand this kind of love will we be able to love one another like the characters in the movies we watch, not for a brief moment in time but for all the days of our lives.
Read related articles:
Love and a Warm Heart
Love is not a Verb
How to trust in Troubled Waters
The Truth about Bad Breath
The True North of Trust
The One Lesson That Changed My Marriage
How to Turn the One Lesson Into Reality
The Risk and Responsibility of Trust
The History of Trust
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