Unconditional Love

One of the best portrayals of unconditional love is shown the the 1992 award winning movie, "A River Runs Through It." For those of you who haven't seen it, this movie tells the story of two fly-fishing sons and their father, a Presbyterian minister. The two boys, one reserved and the other unruly, grow up in the deep countryside of Montana not only as brothers, but also as close friends.

The movie takes us through their lives and gives us a warm lesson on how we can love one another in any situation. Throughout the lives of the two brothers, the younger of the two, Paul, is always finding himself in some sort of trouble, and seemingly pushing away all help from his family and friends who desperately try to get him to change his ways. His responsible older brother, Norman, tries day after day to help him, but somehow Paul always falls back into the redundant pattern of his troubled life. Throughout Paul's life, his family and friends just can't seem to understand why Paul refuses to listen to anyone, and at times, they feel as if they should relinquish their efforts in helping him.

Throughout the movie, the reserved son, Norman, falls in love with a young woman named Jessie. In a conversation with his brother Paul, Norman begins discussing his distant relationship with Jessie's brother, Neal. He begins to tell of how Neal is a deceitful man and how he doesn't want to spend time with this dishonest person. Paul then tries to persuade his brother to do his best to look past Neal's faults and to take him on a fishing trip with the two of them. Norman makes a point to his brother by telling him that Neal doesn't even like to fish, so why waste his time by taking Neal on a fishing trip? Paul then looks at his brother and says, "Maybe so, but maybe what he likes is somebody trying to help him."

Norman immediately know that Paul was speaking of himself, the rebellious son of the two brothers, and how he embraced the fact that his mature brother Norman continuously tried to help him, even though Norman did not exactly know how to help most of the time. It helped Paul just to know that someone cared.

At the end of the movie, Paul's father, Reverend Maclean, says during one of his sermons, "We can love completely without complete understanding."

This is why we need to love. Even when we don't understand why certain people do the things they do, we need to show them love. Even when we don't think it is noticed or makes a difference, love in infectious.

We all need to realize that we can still love completely, even without complete understanding. After all, Jesus knocks at our door all day, waiting for us to allow Him to fill our lives, even if we don't seem to let Him at times. We need to love relentlessly. It will change the world.