Run for your life!

Why Christians need to keep running and never stop.

With my salty snack, blanket, and Disney movie on screen, the last thing I expected was a deep thought. Much less, an encounter with God. Foolish are we, who believe the Word, “I am with you to the end of the age,” to imagine His departure in the most mundane parts.

Stay together

If you’ve not seen the movie, The Land Before Time is worth your time. As a tiny group of young dinosaur friends adventure towards a place they’ve never before seen, the personified creatures are constantly battling their greatest enemies: dreams deferred, danger, detours, disbelief, and doubt, to name a few. The group’s fearful leader, Littlefoot, clings to the hope and direction of his deceased mother as the tiny long-neck encourages his friends to keep going. Littlefoot presses for them to stay together; to endure for the hope of arriving at the Great Valley.

The enemy

Still, despite these incredible parallels and points of reference so personal to our walks with God, on this particular evening, one line was carved into my heart. Dinosaur expert or not, you can probably imagine the most obvious predator to this tiny band of believers on the journey. When the terrifying T-Rex roars with such unanticipated surprise, and leaps into the way of our weaker heroes of story, the inevitability of the occasion seems obvious.

Go Go Go!

“Run for your lives!” Now, I cannot say for sure whether this vomited from my television or my heart, but I do know for sure what erupted from my heart. Thank you, God, I am not a dinosaur. I don’t have to run for my life for fear of being eaten.

Only immediately thereafter came God’s still, small voice, somehow far louder than the movie which raged on with thrashing war. Dear Christian, you should be running for your Life, and no less intensely than if a T-Rex were about to eat you.

Watch out

As a tiny band of believers, we are journeying to a land we’ve never before seen. We encounter enemies such as dreams deferred, danger, detours, disbelief, and doubt, to name a few. Then too, while we shall never encounter a T-Rex, our obvious predator is more terrifying than the dinosaur. Clinging to our no-more-deceased but risen Savior, we are reminded to “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Jesus is

As believers in Jesus Christ, we do not run for our lives because we must somehow attain them by racing. We do not journey for fear of being otherwise helpless. God promises to never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He promises the Great Valley ahead as He faithfully equips us with maps in the mundane.

Dear Christian, run for your Life. Run for your life because Jesus is it.