Fly You Fools!

As I was out running tonight through the trails near our house, the scene from Lord of the Rings where Gandolf was fighting the giant demon in the Mines of Moria stuck in my head. Gandolf's last words to Frodo before being pulled into the abyss were, "Fly, you fool!"

The reason for my thought was on the issue of sin and how important those words are and emphasized even more so in James 4:7 and 1 Corinthians 6:18. However, in one verse (James) the devil is fleeing and in the other verse (Corinthians), it is us doing the fleeing.

The key is the fleeing. In order to be victorious over sin, someone has to go. Either it is the devil or it is me. The trouble with most sin is the neither one is doing the fleeing, which is a pretty good indicator of the familiarity and comfort each has with the other.

That is a sobering and shameful thought, right?

We can't hang over the abyss, gazing into sin without something going terribly wrong. We've got to flee and it really doesn't matter the pace, only the direction.

It's pretty easy to understand that principle when I'm running. I am heading toward something and running away from the starting point. In most cases, it's as simple as getting up and going to defeat sin. But, the interesting thing is this: I'm more interested in staying in physical shape, so I don't need much motivation to get going. But, in the spiritual sense, I'm more slothful; less apt to 'get moving' and more apt to think, "eh, I'm too tired" and then...TROUBLE.

Well, perhaps we need to be reminded to stop looking over the edge and get out of the cave, into the light by being reminded by the Spirit to "Fly, you fools!"