Invented Drama

In the teen rom-com The Kissing Booth 2 (directed by Vince Marcello [Netflix, 2020]), main characters Elle and Noah are long-distance dating. Noah was previously known to be quite the ladies’ man before he fell madly in love with Elle. So when Elle learns Noah’s best friend at Harvard is a beautiful woman, she assumes he has replaced her. She is emboldened by her feelings of abandonment by Noah and ends up kissing another guy. Noah, however, was never unfaithful and remained fully committed to and in love with Elle, even in her absence. It’s easy to get wrapped up in our own feelings. We can invent drama and crises and reasons why we are far from God or he feels absent, but we aren’t in a moody teenage relationship with God. As we learn to love God, we must not rely on feelings of love, but on a deliberate, active love that chooses to obey and engage. Just because we don’t feel it, that doesn’t mean we have a valid excuse to do whatever we want.