Fireproof

My parents and I watched Fireproof last night. Though a bit predictable, the film is still enjoyable and offers good life lessons for both married couples and those singles who hope someday to be married. However, those lessons might arguably be applied not just to a marriage but also to ordinary friendships and even acquaintanceships. (Spell check says this is not a word, but I don't care.)

I struggle a lot with negativity--about myself and about other people--especially when I'm with other people who like to talk negatively. This sometimes surprises people because I usually manage to hide it well, but then it all comes out (kind of like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail when Tom Hanks shows up at her date and she thinks he's making fun of her and all of that nastiness just spills out of her and then later she feels just terrible - it's like that). Anyway, today, I had a small tiff with a co-worker. I think she felt I was over-stepping my bounds and taking work that should have been hers (which, really, it is her work, but our boss had asked me to print something - anyway, the details aren't important). So I happily turned the printing over to her and forwarded her the file, and all was well. I let our boss know that she would be taking care of the document. Then, after she had finished her work, she left, and most days, I would have gone and belly-ached to another of our co-workers about how she had treated me and talked down to me and blah blah blah, but it seemed so pointless to create antagonism in the office when it wasn't even a big deal at all.

So why am I writing this and what does it have to do with Fireproof? Well, I haven't read The Love Dare (which is used in the movie and which you can now buy at pretty much any bookstore anywhere), but the first lesson is not to say anything negative to your spouse. If you can't think of anything positive to say, don't say anything at all. That's a great practice, yes, but what if, then, you go and say a whole bunch of negative stuff about your spouse? (I'm sure this is in the book somewhere - it's in another book anyway.) Sure, you didn't say anything to their face, but you are reinforcing in your own mind the negative views you have of them, still a destructive behavior.

I am so thankful for the grace of God building me up in His love to overflowing. Without that love, of course negativity is going to overwhelm me and pour out, but if I am filled with God's love, then what else can spill out but love? Yet when the flesh does prevail and I fail to uphold God's command to love my neighbor, He forgives me and gives me another chance to try and does not forsake me, though I have forsaken Him.

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, "For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39 NASB)