Escape

Have any of you seen the movie "Finding Nemo" ? Well if not, it's a sweet movie about a daddy clown fish searching for his son the clown fish who gets captured by scuba divers. Anyway, the dad clown fish meets lots of interesting creatures along his journey. One of those creatures is a lovable, beautiful color of blue and yellow, forgetful (as in can't remember a thing) fish named Dory. In one part of the movie they are being chased by sharks and they wind up in some kind of enclosed place, I think a submarine or something. Anyway, Dory sees a door and above the door it says the word escape. Being Dory she starts trying to read it and instead of pronouncing it the right way, at first, she says, " e-scop-a", she says it over and over again, hilarious, then finally realizes that it says escape and they get out of their sticky situation.

So now that I have wasted your time with a silly story, let me tell you why this silly story is in my head this morning. Those of us walking through anything and I mean anything are always looking for an escape from our situation. We search for ways to get out and get out fast! Fortunately, a lot of us turn to God and His Word. Unfortunately, since we have this human nature that is so untamed, we turn to other things to. It can be as innocent as a good tv show or movie or something worse (by our standards) like drugs, alcohol or whatever you can imagine that this world would throw our way to distract us from the battle at hand so that we can be thrown off guard and therefore end up on the losing side.

Walking through this journey, I have been standing on God's Word and trusting and speaking His promises over my life everyday, sometimes even multiple times a day, pretty much without fail. While I see God working and I am getting better physically each week, I still get to that place where I want that quick escape away from it all. I don't want to be in the battle or the process, I just want to forget and pretend that everything is okay. While I believe it's okay to have some fun in the midst of all the stuff we battle, I think we have to be aware of our motivation for doing so. That's what God convicts me about. He gives us a pretty clear warning in His Word.

Hebrews 2:1-4, " We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received it's just punishment, how shall we ESCAPE if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will."

It's funny, we think we are escaping by running from the process that God has us in but our only true escape is through Him, saving us. We can't forget what we have heard, God's promises, His Word. We are just masking the pain. It's like taking medicine to cover up symptoms but it's not really taking care of the root issue. When that medicine wears off we are completely aware of the pain once again. While I am not perfect yet in this area, recognizing that my escape is best spent with Him, I am glad that God is continually teaching me how to. In Him there's signs, wonders and various miracles...I'm pretty sure that out weighs the emptiness that I receive every time I run to anything else but Him in those moments where I don't want to fight. Oh this flesh and it's motivations! UGH! I will conquer you!!!

If you are tired and weary, I believe it's okay to have a fun time, just don't neglect God or replace Him with it. He actually takes the pain away, no masking, He has given us our miracle we just have to e-scop-a into Him first!