Finding God in a Forrest

Flipping through the channels last night I stumbled across the tail end of Forrest Gump. It made phrases such as "Life is like a box of chocolates," "that's all I got to say about that," and "stupid is as stupid does" were made famous. As I turned to the channel Jenny, Forrest's childhood friend and lifelong love, was laying on a bed dieing from AIDS, while Forrest sat at her bedside retelling the tales of his adventures during their time apart. It was at this point I was struck with how Forrest's love for Jenny parallels God's love for us.

The uniqueness of this relationship is that Jenny was one of the first people to demonstrate kindness to Forrest. While it is clear that Jenny is the only girl for Forrest, it is also clear that Jenny never even entertains the idea of being with Forrest. Through a series of events Jenny begins to fade in and out of Forrest's life. Until, one night Jenny tells Forrest to stay away from her then...as Forrest says, "just like that, she was gone."

Jenny's life is full of poor choices and circumstances that lead her into a downward spiral. Later on in life Jenny contacts Forrest and asks him to come see her. He does so and we discover Jenny is dieing. Forrest moves Jenny into his home and they eventually get married, despite her impending death.

Many of us are like Jenny in one way or another. For some of us, we see God as a nice guy, but we would never entertain the idea of entering into a intimate relationship with him. Others, we have told God we want him to stay away from us. There are those of us who are friends with God, but we don't always treat him the way he deserves to be treated. Then some of us are going down a self-destructive path.

In whatever way we may identify with Jenny, God's response to us is the same as Forrest's response to Jenny; unwavering devotion and love. Throughout the movie Forrest is faithful to Jenny and we never see his love for her falter, regardless of how long she's gone, what she does, or how she treats him. Forrest embodies the agape of God, whose love for us is totally independent of our actions, but is an outpouring of his being.