"Crazy, Stupid, Love" Actually Reflects God’s Best For Us

Can a decades-old rom-com about hookup culture point us toward God’s design for relationships? I actually think it can.

Pour one out for the good ole days of 2011. Adele was the hottest thing in music; Parks and Rec took over TV; gas was a measly $3 a gallon. And the cinematic masterpiece Crazy, Stupid, Love hit theaters over the summer.

Admittedly, that last one might be easy for you to forget. But for me, God used it to get my attention in a big way. Somehow, that Steve Carell-Ryan Gosling film changed something deep inside me that, years down the line, introduced me to my now wife. More on her later.

If you haven’t seen Crazy, Stupid, Love… or don’t make it a point to re-watch old movies, a quick synopsis is in order (I will have to spoil some of the plot, but you have had since 2011 to see it). Fresh out of The Office, Steve Carrel plays a man named Cal, who discovers his wife has been cheating on him. After a messy separation, Cal spends most evenings in a nightclub, unintentionally observing a womanizing Jacob (Ryan Gosling) talk to any woman he pleases. The pair eventually meet, with Jacob offering to teach Cal the ropes of scoring one-night stands.

You can see where this is going. Cue a montage of both men sleeping around.

Up to this point, everything about this film follows an expected cultural narrative. Namely, that sex—especially sex outside the stifling confines of a relationship—can be fun. If the movie ended here, it would have quickly been forgotten as a low-stakes, surface-level 2010’s popcorn flick.

But it’s the unexpected turn at the end that changed things for me.

As the movie nears its conclusion, both men come to a realization neither of them saw coming. Namely, that their pursuit of endless hookup culture doesn’t satisfy them the way they thought it would—in the moment or in the long term. This lesson hits Jacob (Gosling) like a root canal. He doesn't want to admit it, but he can’t find any way around it. Sitting at the bar, in a rare moment of vulnerability, he shares his heart with Cal:

“Look, Cal, it's not something that I wanted, okay? I looked at people who were in love...and I thought the way that they were behaving… the things that they were doing and saying...they appeared pathetic, honestly. And I spent all this time with you; I'm trying to make you more like me...and it turns out I just wanna be…I need that drink.”

Jacob can’t even bring himself to say it out loud, but at the end of the day, the playboy wants what the fuddy-duddy married man used to have: commitment.

All while the fuddy-duddy married man, Cal, learns firsthand that adopting Jacob’s playboy lifestyle only made him miss his marriage more.

The revelations change our heroes. They leave behind their wild and destructive hookup habit for the most dangerous pursuit of all: monogamy. Cal looks to win back his former wife, while Jacob focuses on the girl of his dreams. In chasing their cravings, both men discover that a long-lasting, committed relationship outweighs the hits of dopamine they got from any one-night stand.

No matter how much culture champions limitless sex, humans are suckers for true love. We always come back to commitment. And not just in this movie, but across the history of cinema. The most highly rated romance movies nearly always have endings where a committed relationship is formed. Why is that the case? In a hypersexualized culture, where pornography, hookup experiences, and the over-sexualization of both men and women run rampant, wouldn’t we expect art to take us to a “happier” ending?

Interestingly, science points to the same conclusion. As modern research catches up with current dating culture, even the data is poking holes in any hope we might put in hookups.

A national college survey of over 2,500 students from various secular and religious schools found that, among those who reported ‘hooking up,’ 41% were profoundly upset about their behavior, the largest category of respondents. They also used words such as “awkward, dirty, miserable, empty, alone, disgusted, and ashamed” to describe those experiences.

In conducting research with similar results, the American Psychological Association came to a culture-shaking conclusion: “By definition, sexual hookups provide the allure of sex without strings attached. Despite their increasing social acceptability, however, developing research suggests that sexual hookups may leave more strings attached than many participants might first assume.”

I can tell you, I’ve found this to be entirely true in my own life. I have spent a lot of days and nights trying to convince myself that Jesus didn’t know what he was saying regarding sex (like here and here)—that His conservative approach might have been well and good for his time, but we’ve found a more enlightened path since then.

After navigating failure after failure, each experience leaving me emptier than the last, I reached my Jacob point. I finally gave up on my way, the one that wasn’t working, and I decided to try God’s way.

I believe we’re drawn to commitment because we—me, and the Cals and Jacobs of the world—are all made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). The same God that sees a married couple not as two individuals, but one new creation (Matthew 19:3-6). The same God that commissions humanity to be his “ambassadors” in the world, representing the unseen to those who don’t see him yet (2 Corinthians 5:20). The same God that defines himself by his commitment to us (Exodus 34:5-6). The same God who, despite all our faults, never leaves us; never forgets us; never trades us in; never upgrades; never runs out on us (Matthew 28:19-20, Deuteronomy 31:6).

We are drawn to commitment, despite cultural pressure against it, because God made us reflecting His nature. He is committed to us. He is faithful, and he designed us to be the same.

Unlike a rom-com, my problem wasn’t solved in 90 minutes (bring back shorter movies, for the love!). It took years of “two steps forward, one step back” to stumble my way into trusting God in this space. Cultural pressure is hard to push off. Pornography is way too easy to access. Hormones and desire scream loudly.

But when I dared to try God's way, even without understanding all the “whys”, I found my vision was elevated. I was less and less controlled by the here and now, bowing to the whims of my latest momentary feeling or urge, and discovered real freedom on the other side. It’s not a freedom that says “anything goes,” but one that allowed me to drop all the excess weight of living by my urges. Honestly, it felt like taking off a backpack full of bricks. I didn’t know how heavy it had become until I tasted the freedom of dropping it.

Freedom can be a hard word to define, especially when it comes to faith. I think the late-great pastor, Tim Keller, came the closest to nailing it down: “In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.”

God’s boundaries for sex—that it belongs, and even thrives, in a marriage setting—isn’t easy to follow. But slotting myself under that design led to my freedom. I was free to date without the stress of wondering which base I’d get to. I could fall in love with my beautiful wife’s kindness and personality rather than with what she had to offer me sexually. I could focus on deeper sides of intimacy—sharing emotions, looking for shared vision, praying together—instead of settling for just putting parts together.

And that freedom paid off. My wife and I had a whirlwind romance, marrying 16 months after we started dating. She’s incredible, and I would have missed her if I had been chasing my latest fix.

To be clear, I’m not saying that if you throw away your “freedom” to live under God’s guidance, all your wildest dreams will come true. But I am saying that I believe God’s way is better, whether you get the magic ending or not.

Speaking of—I’m nowhere near perfect. My wife and I work at our marriage every day, and sometimes, we come up short. But I know she is committed to me, and I am committed to her, and that can power us through anything that life hands our way.

God is patient. He didn’t give up on me when I made choices that ran counter to his best design for sex. Instead, He did the opposite. He kept chasing me. He is persistent, kind, and committed. No matter what’s part of your past, I believe He’s doing the same for you.

The amount of love, patience, and faithfulness God shows to his people? It’s crazy. Stupid. You might even call it true love.

Disclaimer: This article is 100% human-generated.

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