Mission: Impossible III

“Do you trust me?”

Despite the hype about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, their baby and Scientology, I still ventured out and saw Mission: Impossible III It was the first ‘popcorn’ movie of the summer, and it had all the thrills and excitement that I expected from a Tom Cruise film.

Ethan Hunt, the IMF (impossible mission force) agent played by Tom Cruise and who has been the central character of all of the Mission: Impossible movies, and finally, in this third installment, he is a man in search of a better life.

As a secret agent, Hunt’s job and lifestyle is to build up a wall of distrust around him so he can more effectively save the world from the criminals and evil masterminds bent on destroying all that is good and decent. If people really knew him, they might be able to destroy all his work as a government spy. Quite understandable, but also understandable is the movie’s need to begin and end the film with Hunt craving a life where we can finally trust someone.

In the middle of this movie is one scene when Ethan Hunt says to his fiancée, “Can you trust me?” It takes a lot of guts to trust a secret agent whose life it is to keep all these secrets to protect the country and the ones they love.

But she said “yes.”

By the end of the movie, Ethan has to trust his then-wife, and she has to trust him. And that is what are called to do as Christians. We are called to trust what another because God made the world good. He made the world perfect, and in our innermost selves, we are all trustworthy people.

But we break down the relationships that God has given to us when we don’t trust each other and we aren’t trustworthy. If this movie shows that a wife can trust a secret agent of the government, how much more can we in our non-secret-agent lives be trusted? If Katie Holmes can trust someone like Tom Cruise, how much more can we be trusted and trust each other?

On our money, we say “in God we trust,” but do we really put our trust in God? St. Paul says, “No trial has come to you except what is enough for humans. God is faithful to you and will not let you be tried beyond your strength. Furthermore, with any trial that faces you, he will provide you a way out, so that you may be able to bear it all.” (1 Cor. 10:13). We are reminded here that God won’t give us more than we can handle, and even if it seems overwhelming, there is always a God-given way out. Do you trust God enough to be true to that?

So again, I ask if a woman can trust a secret agent (especially one like Tom Cruise), how much more can we trust God, and by the same token, how much more can we trust those whom God has given us in our lives.