How to Share Your Faith Using Hitch
When does love make you want to dive in front of a bus? The answer may surprise you.
In the movie Hitch, Will Smith plays Alex "Hitch" Hitchens, a "date doctor" who helps women to "get past themselves" and men to sweep women off their feet. His advice - and his surprising success - he owes to a few basic principles. The tension rises when the principles fail to work as effectively in his own pursuit of Sara, the one woman who steals his heart.
- Principle One: "No woman says 'I don't want to get swept off my feet today.'" In other words, we all need to be loved.
- Principle Two: "90% of what you're saying ain't coming out of your mouth." The tone of your voice, the expression on your face, and even the way you hold your arms communicates more than words.
- Principle Three: "If you're shy, be shy. If you're out-going be out-going. Just be yourself."
Are these principles true?
While we all desire to be loved, it's why we need to be loved, and who can love us best, that is important. Hitch teaches, "Any man can sweep any woman off her feet at any time." While this could be true, it isn't lasting. Looking for one person to "complete" you, or who can truly love you may be noble, but is also futile. Every person is uniquely imperfect and our own selfishness and sin often get in the way of the love we desperately seek. While the longing for love is right and good, we often seek it from fragile and broken people. Our need for love can be fulfilled, but only by God. The Bible says "God is love" (1 John 4.8).
Love is more than words. Hitch has lunch with a potential client, who describes a girl he thinks holds the key to his longings. At first, Hitch thinks he can help, until the man proclaims his longing is for sex rather than love. Love is more than words. 1 John 3.18 says,
"Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions" (NLT).
According to Hitch, love is not about impressing the girl, it's about getting her to fall in love with the real you. This may take an extreme moment, a well-planed "event", to get her to notice you. Unfortunately we often strive to be what we think the other person wants us to be, rather than who we are. As well intentioned as this can be, it's really just a well-intentioned lie. Instead of trying to impress them, try to impress God. He already loves you, and as you love Him back you grow closer to him. As you grow closer to God, you become the kind of person who is attractive to the right kind of guy or girl. If your love interest is turned off by your relationship with God, then they don't know how to love. How do we "impress" God? The letter of 1 John tells us this also:
"We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us" (3.23).
When we believe in God and in his Son Jesus, we learn what love is. Jesus said, "And here is how to measure [love] — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends" ( John 15.13). Jesus knows this side of love too. He called his death a "cup of suffering" (Luke 22.42). In his death he showed that he was willing to lay down his life for ours. It is because of his suffering (caused by our sin) that we can know real love. Share this astounding truth about God's sacrificial love with your friends next time you're in a conversation about dating or love.
Albert, the man Hitch is trying to help in the movie, has his relationship with the woman he loves torn away from him because of someone else's sin. He says, "I feel like I want to throw myself off every building in New York City ." It is when sin gets in the way of love that we most want to dive in front of a bus. In this important scene Albert teaches Hitch that this is good and right, because being miserable from loving well is better than being callous and unloving.
When does love make you want to dive in front of a bus? Many times, when it's right and true.
