Click

This evening Kessia and I sat after a long day for some mindless TV. We found a movie on with Adam Sandler, which almost guarantees silliness and mayhem. Instead, I rediscovered the depth of the movie "Click" and the lessons it gives us.

The movie focuses on a character who recieves a remote to better control his life. This allows him to fast forward, rewind, mute, and pause. At first this new ability brings a lot of great opportunities and jokes, but soon the remote has learned what the main characters preferences are and auto executes these commands. Soon Adam is skipping sicknesses, arguments, sex, traffic, and almost all parts of life. He wants to slow down, but can not and misses everything. In the end he is sitting on his deathbed (or street) and tells his son not to make the same mistakes.

There was one line that really grabbed me. "You were already fast forwarding through life before you got the remote." That line says it all. He did get a special power to act it out, but he was already doing that in other ways. When I think about this concept placed in to all of our lives I wonder how many times we fast forward.

When have you fast forwarded in life? For me I know there have been times where I have tuned out, gone through the motions, or just not really been present. I have one vivid memory of growing up and being lectured by my Dad. I got his point and then tuned out. He caught me in it and was like reading my mind. That was scary!

There have been other times that I can think of where I went through the motions. Just recently I was helping with a young life group and towards the end I tuned out. I fast forwarded to the end just so I did not have to think about it any longer. Part of it was a coping mechanisim. I was stressed and it was a way to not allow it to bother me. I used the same thing in other ministry positions where the time there was too stressful. The thing that I forget is that even the pain is worth while. If we tune out or fast forward then we often miss things that could have or would have meant a lot.

The other thing that caught me about the movie is how Adam forgets about people. The tear jerker is when he ignores his Dad the last time he will ever see him. Sadly, when we fast forward we often tune out the thing that is the most important, people. There was a saying that many speakers at APU used to give. They would say "There are two things in life that are eternal. The first is the Bible. The second is people." Those are the two things that live on in the afterlife. If that is the case then we should make sure that those two things are what we do not tune out or fast forward through.

Slow down, enjoy the day, and remember what is eternal.