March 23, 2009 "Mushy movies"

Psalm 89:1 Your love, O LORD, for ever will I sing; *from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness. 2 For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; * you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.

Mushy movies move me. Not bad for alliteration and also true. My brother Matthew and I recently sat through “Marley and Me”, a movie about a family and a dog based on the true dog stories of Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, John Grogan

There are scenes in the movie that are very touching. By the end, we were both sniffling, but as I looked around the theater we weren’t the only ones. I loved the movie, because it was a story of love and faithfulness.

I love stories where love and goodness triumph. The writer of Psalm 89 writes “For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever...”

Not every story in this life or this world has a happy ending. It is not self-evident that a) there is a God, b) that God is good, and c) that God is love.

Perhaps that is why the writer says “I am persuaded...” Because it is not immediately obvious that God’s love is established for ever. It is not obvious that God’s faithfulness is firmly in place.

God must persuade, for if he forces, then he is not love. John said it simply “God is love.”
God will use all the force in the universe to make us seek that love, but will never force us to accept it. God will demonstrate that love over and over. And if we will let our hearts open up, and be willing to be “mushy” on occasion, we may find ourselves persuaded, that despite all the evil to the contrary, “that your love is established for ever.”

John the apostle said it simply. 1John 4:8b “God is love.”

Shakespeare was talking of his own love, yet it holds true for God as well.

Sonnet 116

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616)