part 2 of “At The Movies”
About 3 years ago, God showed me something in the movie, Forrest Gump. I have seen the movie many times and I never saw this in the movie until God revealed it to me. I hope that what I share in this post will be as encouraging for you as it was for me.
Forrest Gump mainly follows the lives of two characters - Forrest Gump and Jenny. Forrest meets Jenny on the school bus when she allows him to sit with her. They become friends and start to hang out with each other. As they get older their lives start to take different paths. But one thing that remains is that Forrest loves Jenny and wants to care for her always.
Throughout their adult lives, Forrest and Jenny bump into each other at random times. These random meetings usually result in Forrest saving her from a situation and Jenny scolding him for doing so. Jenny tells Forrest that he needs to leave her alone.
After a while, Jenny finally reaches out to Forrest. She has him come to her place and she tells him that she’s sick. Forrest and Jenny get married and he cares for her until she dies.
If you look at that brief summary of the movie, you can see what God does for us. Let look at the story of the Prodigal Son for more [1].
The story of the Prodigal Son has three characters: the father, the younger brother, and the older brother. The story begins by introducing the three characters but then mainly focuses on the younger brother and his choice to take his share of his father’s inheritance and leave him. The younger son started to blow all of his money on wild living and soon his money ran out. When his money ran out, he started working for a farmer and feeding the pigs. He finally came to his senses and decided to return home and beg his father to hire him as a servant. But when the father saw him coming, he ran to him, scooped him up in his arms, and hugged and kissed him. The father then told the servants to bring his son a robe, a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. He also instructed them to kill a fattened calf for the celebration party he was throwing because his son had returned home. The older brother heard the party and got mad at his father for throwing a party for his estranged brother. He was so upset he didn’t go to the party. The father explained to his oldest son that he had to celebrate the return of his son.
When I look at this Bible story and the movie Forrest Gump together, I see a very similar story. In both stories, we see one of the characters running away from the love and care of another character - in the Prodigal Son it’s the son running from the father, and in Forrest Gump, it’s Jenny running from Forrest.
In both stories, we also see the characters that ran away engage in a wild lifestyle looking for what they wanted in life and that costs them a lot. The younger brother lost everything he had and Jenny lost her health.
In both stories, we see them return to the one person that always wanted to care for them in the first place - the prodigal son returned to his father and Jenny returned to Forrest.
One final thing from both stories, we see the runaway characters return and no questions are asked. They both are just accepted back.
Now, this is what God showed me. We all run away sometimes from God. We decide that we don’t want to wait for Him to help us. We decide that we don’t like how He wants to help us. So we turn and run and God gives us the space. God allows us to run.
Then we try to do life on our own. We try to handle things our way. We tend to make things a lot worse. But here’s the amazing part… GOD ALLOWS THE RETURN.
God is there to greet us when we turn around. God is there with open arms ready to welcome us back. The Prodigal Son story paints such a good image of this:
“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” - Luke 15:20 NLT
This is just an amazing image. God welcomes us back. God doesn’t ask questions. God just wants us.
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[1] The story of the Prodigal Son can be found in Luke 15:11-32.
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