Life Here and There

I, like most men I know, enjoy movies with some action and movement. Fire… explosions… suspense… these are the elements that get us excited. None of those “chick flicks,” right? My wife will sit and cry over all the sad and happy parts and I’m there strictly for the comic relief. But I will honestly admit, I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy – a love story with a happy ending. We all are – we’re suckers for it (whether we’ll admit it or not).

In a conversation the other day, I was telling my seven-year-old the story of Romeo and Juliet. I’m not sure how we got onto the subject, but she kept wanting to know more. About two thirds of the way through, I realized I was going to have to try to explain how it ended – they both die! For some reason, during the Elizabethan era, we thought that was romantic!

Romeo and Juliet was a romantic tragedy, but our culture is addicted to happy endings, so we will accept nothing other than a romantic comedy in which everyone lives “happily ever after.”

That’s the story of Ruth and Boaz. Here it is in short (based on Ruth 3-4): Ruth finds Boaz overseeing the threshing of his wheat crop and uses an ancient cultural tradition of the time to essentially propose marriage to him. He takes her up on the offer, protects her reputation, and goes out of his way to buy the land that she will forfeit without a husband. He further marries her and they have kids. And they live happily ever after.

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I figured on a Monday, you might be able to use a good smile. I couldn’t help but smile through this entire clip and ask myself… why didn’t I think of this?

By the way, this was discovered via Mashable’s 10 Most Romantic Social Media Finds.

Most people will never ponder that question, especially men. We’re too busy scrambling for romantic ideas. Jay Leno said men like to call February 14 “Extortion Day.” I think it’s nice to be able to set aside a day to be extra-sweet to that one who means so much to us. But have you ever known much of the history of the holiday?

Mark Driscoll has shared a pretty neat article about it that I wanted to pass along – I found the bottom line of it quite sobering. Go ahead and be sweet to your mate – it is a great opportunity to restore some chivalry to our animalistic culture. But also stop and think about a man who gave up his life for his greatest love – Jesus.

Valentine’s sacrifice was no great feat at all compared to the One who would ultimately “lay down his life for His friends.” You are Jesus’ greatest love! Is He yours?

photo credit: aprilzosia