This summer, a movie sequel is coming out
that many youth in our country are looking
forward to, called “Transformers: Revenge
of the Fallen.” The reason young
people are looking forward to it is because
almost everybody saw the first movie,
“Transformers,” either in theaters or on
DVD. If you haven’t seen the first
one, you might ask why was it so popular?
Well, aside from having really cool action
scenes, great special effects, and
transforming robots, it also had a teenage
love story, which seems to make any summer
movie successful these days.
A teenage love story- one that took place
between a nerdy high schooler named Sam who
had just bought his first car with his dad,
and Mikaela, an attractive, popular
classmate, whose affection Sam tries to win.
In one of the first scenes in the movie, Sam
drives his new car to a park where some
“cool kids” are hanging out, including
Mikaela, with a guy who doesn’t respect
her. After she wants to leave the park
and walk home, Sam offers to give her a
ride, hoping to impress her with his new
car.
If you came to any of my high school
workshops at FDF this year (or if you’re a
member of GOYA at Annunciation Cathedral in
San Francisco), you’ll remember that I
showed this scene when talking about
relationships, because I thought it made a
great point: guys and girls in high school
try to present images of themselves to
others around them, often so they can
impress each other. I believe that in
one sense, this is something very natural-
when you’re young and you like someone,
you want them to like you back, and you make
an effort to impress them. On the
other hand, sometimes when we want someone
to like us, we may try to act like a
different person, because that’s what we
think the other person wants to see.
We want to be anyone other than ourselves,
and often we might do things that are really
not us.
To switch gears for a moment, there is a
story in the Bible about two young people
named Isaac and Rebecca (Genesis 24).
It’s about a young woman, Rebecca, who was
faithful, respectful, and beautiful, and
about a servant who travels a long distance
to find a wife for his master’s son
(because in those days, marriages were
arranged). He stops with his camels at
a well, where Rebecca, who had come to draw
water for her family, gives the servant and
his animals water first. When the
servant realizes that this young woman had
thought of others before herself, he informs
Rebecca and her family that he has asked God
to help him find a wife for his master’s
son. Hearing that the servant had
asked God to help him find someone, Rebecca,
out of her faith, says good-bye to her
family and leaves with the servant.
When they arrived at his master Abraham’s
camp, Abraham’s son Isaac came out to
greet Rebecca and the servant. The
Scripture says that Isaac was very handsome
as well as faithful, and the two fell in
love and were married thereafter.
Of
course, this story was meant for a specific
time and context, but it still holds a
powerful message for us today: both Isaac
and Rebecca left finding their significant
other in God’s hands, and neither of these
people needed to be anyone else other than
who God had made them to be. It is for
this reason that I want to share with you
guys something that I believe we should know
when it comes to relationships: God does not
want you to be anyone else other than who He
made you to be. He has made you who
you are for a reason, and in His image and
likeness, and that makes who you are holy
and special. He calls us to develop
our relationships with friends, family
members, and even in our dating
relationships, but at the same time to grow
as people and stay true to who we are.
If we base a relationship around someone
we’re not, that relationship will not
work. I know it’s hard to do at
times, but the more we grow as people
ourselves, the more we get to know ourselves
as God has made us, the better a
relationship with someone else will be.
In other words, just be yourself.
