Spring Breakers

So last night I saw the film Spring Breakers. I knew it was Selena Gomez’s first edgy film, and I was curious to see what all the hype was about. I thought it would be some light-hearted party flick, but turns out it was not at all what I expected.

The film is dark and full of drinking, nudity, drug use, threesomes, and murder. Now, I am conservative but I can handle a film with most of the abovementioned content if there is some redemptive value… some lesson to be learned… some sort of character growth. But I felt this film was almost completely void of any of that.

The girls in the film want to get out of their small town where they are in school. They want to experience something new and different from the everyday routine they are in. They want to feel alive. They want to find themselves.

Everyone here on this earth is trying to find a deeper meaning, some sort of purpose, a reason for it all. I think so many people get into drugs, violence, sexual experimentation, etc. because they are searching to fill a void. I believe we are all inherently eternal creatures. We were made to long for deeper meaning, an eternal perspective, something more than just this life here and living for today.

The world and the things of this world will never fulfill us. We will always want more. This is made evident by unhappy millionaires and depressed billionaires. The people in this world will constantly let us down. Even the ones who love us. Especially the ones who love us. We can’t look outside ourselves for happiness and fulfillment, or we will constantly be chasing the elusive water across the never-ending desert.

This world is ever changing. Nothing stays the same. Each day we face a new trial, a new problem. Sometimes it’s a new accomplishment, a new blessing. But we can be sure that before long we will have a new obstacle to overcome. Life is full of ups and downs, successes and failures, highs and lows. But the one thing we have the remains constant is Jesus. Hebrews 13:8 tells us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

I am all about living for today - experiencing the pleasures that come with each day, taking each day one day at a time. Matthew 6:34 says, “Do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it’s own.” But if we don’t live each day with an eternal perspective, then what is the point of it all?

At the end of the film, there are voiceovers of the girls leaving phone messages to their moms saying things like, “I feel like I found myself here. I want to be better – better at school, better at life in general… I think the key to life is being a good person.”

Wanting to be a good person is great. We can wake up each day and try to be a good person. We can try to do the right thing. We can try not to sin. But the thing is, we are all sinners. It’s in our nature. Even the most stand-up citizens, best role models, preachers and pastors sin. Psalm 14:3 says that “all have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Sin separates us from God. Jesus – through his crucifixion and resurrection – is the bridge that spans the void between us and God. Having Jesus in our lives is the only way we can find hope and fulfillment. Jesus tells us through Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We can try to be a good person time after time, but time after time we will fail. No matter how hard we try, we can’t do it on our own. We aren’t perfect. We never will be. But we can live our lives each day trying to be more like Christ. We can live each day here on this earth with the hope and reassurance of knowing we will spend an eternity with Christ in heaven.

This life is but a blip in the radar of eternity. It is one tiny pin-pointed dot on a never-ending line. How will you live each day? What will you do with the short amount of time you have here? In what will you find fulfillment?