I don't think it was a huge blockbuster hit, but a recent movie came out called "The Jones" starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny. It was about a family who has it all. They have the best house on the block in a neighborhood where no one makes less than six figures. They drive all the best cars including the latest Audi and they are the envy of all their neighbors. What you don't realize is that they aren't a real family. They are a group of employees posing as a family, used to market the latest products in a public arena to make them desirable to the consumers surrounding them. All of their outfits, the phones they use, the golf clubs they play with are used to attract the attention from the relationships they've made with the people in their neighborhood. Nothing is real. They don't have a real marriage, those aren't actually their kids, and they don't even get to keep any of the stuff they are marketing. But they do get paid handsomely.
The curious truth is that David Duchovny's character is new to this position and he's having a hard time living this pretend life. He doesn't get to have a relationship with anyone in his "family" and all of his friendships are fake. He tries to get the other employees to break the mold but they don't understand the point if it doesn't help them sell their products. Demi Moore only ever wants to talk business, and he finds himself being very lonely. They have all the nicest of everything and the most beautiful house and the coolest cars but they are deeply alone.
As he starts to learn the ropes of his job, he starts to become very successful at it. One neighbor in particular latches on to him and seeks his advice to have the type of relationship with his wife that Duchovny does with his "wife". They become "friends" and this neighbor finds buying things for himself makes him happy, and buying his wife a steady stream of gifts makes him even happier in the bedroom. When push comes to shove, however, he realizes he can't afford the lifestyle that the Jones' do, and he finds out they're going to take his house in foreclosure. The next morning, his wife finds him roped to his fancy new lawnmower that he drove into the pool, drowned.
Duchovny's character has immense guilt because he understand the impact he had on this man, and that this was partially his fault. He comes clean in front of all the neighbors and the widow of the man who'd died. No one is happy at the news understandably, but she especially understands the gravity of his words and hits him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Jones' make a run for it since he's blown their cover. They find a new "dad" and take on a new home in a different neighborhood. Duchovny again finds himself very much alone, and just as confused as ever.
He and Demi Moore's character had actually bonded and really let themselves connect. They realized they liked each other's company as more than co-workers, but she takes some convincing. After they run from the situation, Duchovny tracks her down in her new house and poses the question to her: where will you be when you're too old to have "kids"? when you can't keep up this front for your job anymore? alone? lonely? with all this money they've made and no one to share the simple joys of life with? and he asks her to give up everything and leave with him. She looks shaken but she says no.
Miles down the road where he's found walking (he turned in the car) she pulls up beside him and they drive off together in the direction of a new life, only this time, it's a real life together.
This movie really hit a lot of issues I think people neglect in dealing with. They're envy of what others have and their greed. The idea of needing to have the best of everything. I in no way am saying that people who have really nice things are in any way bad people. It's those who are achieving it for all the wrong reasons. In this movie, the "daughter" was attracted to older men and found herself happily having an affair with a married man, who ended up leaving her. The "son" was good friends with a girl in the neighborhood who he got seriously drunk at a party he had and while he was making a pass at her brother, she drove away and got in an accident; he got beat up. Society tells us what we need. They tell us what will fulfill our empty spirits. They tell us what it will take to make us truly happy. And all of the things they prescribe only leave us feeling in want of more. Because that empty feeling is only greater than it was before.
God was meant to fill that void in our lives. He never meant for you to fill it with stuff. Things that you can't take with you anywhere. Things that can be stolen, or burnt to a crisp in a rapid fire. things that can be sold for a monetary value. But what He offers, what He can provide, will fulfill you in a way that you'll never understand what it's like to be empty ever again. And it's a feeling that no one could EVER take away from you.
In the same token, I think of the ultimate question Duchovny's character asks Moore in the end; where will all of this lead you? Who will you share it all with when you're all alone? In my life, I have never had to truly know terrible heartache. I've never had to go without a meal, I've never not had some car to drive since the age of 16. Since my freshman year of college, I've always had a cell phone. Even while money is tight for a couple as young as we, I still have all the "things" that make life fun and enjoyable. But if it was all gone away, what would I be left with? Well, I'd be left with my husband. My husband holding my baby girl who are laughing so hard on the couch next to me that I can't keep in the tears from laughing so hard. My little puppy who cuddles up so close that he ends up hogging 1/2 the bed to himself to keep near you. My baby girl who sweetly sleeps in my crossed legs with her little lips sucking her paci in her sleep and a smile that peeks out from happy dreams. My husband who holds me close at the end of every day, no matter what kind of day we've had with one another. I know he's there. And even more so, I have my God. My God who loves me, who looks after me, who cherishes me, who makes all my dreams in this life come true, so long as I remember he can take them all away, but leave me with a future in Heaven for sure. Instead of a life that will ensure angst and bitterness in keeping up with the Jones' (or the Kardashians, or whomever the case may be) I will reach even higher for more: in keeping up with my Father, who will take me further into joy and farther into love than these things could ever afford.
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