17 Again

All I can say is: Wow!

I dragged my husband along to see 17 Again, the new film with Zac Efron (High School Musical) and Matthew Perry, not particularly expecting anything amazing. It was awesome! Not only was it hysterically funny, but it had a brilliant message.

Most films which involve time-travel or transformations centre around the protagonist going back to change the course of history, to improve his life for the better. Back to the Future is the classic example. 17 Again opens with a scene from 1989: a basketball game that could give Mike O'Donnell a college scholarship. His girlfriend tells him that she is pregnant, and he leaves the basketball court to run after her. He marries her, and then 17 years later their marriage is on the rocks, because he has resented her for the way his life has turned out. I felt apprehensive that this film was going to chart the breakdown of a marriage, or worse, a fairy-tale change of history. I was wrong!

This film is really about Mike's realisation that his decisions were not wrong; the way he dealt with them was the problem. The film is about how he faces up to his responsibilities and realises what he has in his wife and children. Not only does it promote saving marriages, but it also promotes saving sex for marriage. I was impressed!

I thoroughly recommend this film. It is thoughtful and has something relevant to say about family life in today's world. With increasingly depressing statistics about marriage and families (in The Daily Telegraph today they quote the Office for National Statistics' figures that more under-25s give birth than get married, and an average marriage lasts 11 years), it is great to see a film affirming the importance of not taking your relationships for granted, and working at them. Going through a wedding ceremony does not make a marriage; giving birth to a child does not make a successful parent-child relationship. We need to stop kidding ourselves that these things happen 'naturally'.

The Bible tells us frankly that we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7). If we spend all our efforts on our career or 'me-time', we are not going to enjoy close marriages or really know our children. How refreshing to be reminded by a secular film that people matter more than getting your own way, or getting more stuff.

How salty are you? (Matt 5)

'You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.' Matt 5:13

Every day we make decisions to either share God's light or not. Every missed opportunity is like the salt without its taste; in choosing to sin instead of to do good, we take the goodness out of the salt. We will never have the opportunity to re-live that decision. Once salt has lost its flavour, it doesn't regain it.

Moreover, sin makes us vulnerable to be trampled on. Salt preserves, just as the Spirit within us keeps the Word strong in our hearts. When we sin, we reject the Spirit and the barriers have broken down so Satan can get at us. We may lose our passion for God.

But the good news is that the Holy Spirit is constantly renewing us. Every time we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, God gives us another chance and we are a new creation, full of life and flavour. We just need to work on staying salty for as long as possible.

'God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.' Rom 5:5