“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.“
1 Corinthians 10:13
One of my favorite books is The Pilgrims Progress. When I finished reading it, I felt such a weight…it wasn’t a burdensome weight, but a mysterious heaviness nevertheless. Best way for me to describe the heaviness was a longing for heaven. The phrase, as I would later frame it in my mind, was a weight of glory–a weight of heaven. Its value–heaven– after reading this book was far more significant, and it made all my other pursuits like chaff that blows off of wheat in the wind.
There’s a scene that I have considered over and over since reading the book. It’s a situation that Christian and his traveling companion had found themselves in. The circumstances where quite avoidable, as was the confinement.
In short, Christian and his companion decided they were tired of walking the hard and rugged road of obedience, and decided to take the comfortable path into the Giant of Despair’s country. Upon falling asleep–for they had become so at ease in their wayward trek–they found themselves captured by the Giant and thrown in his prison of discouragement. They remained there without hope until Christian remembered something that was previously given to him. The scene from the book unfolds here:
“Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in passionate speech: What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking Dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty. I have a Key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any Lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, That’s good news; good Brother pluck it out of thy bosom and try.
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the Dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the Key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the Castle-yard, and with his Key opened that door also. After he went to the iron Gate, for that must be opened too, but that Lock went very hard, yet the Key did open it. Then they thrust open the Gate to make their escape with speed; but that Gate as it opened made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his Prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his Fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s High-way again, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction.”
What’s fascinating about this story is the fact Christian had a way out the whole time. However, he was so caught up by his own present circumstances that he suffered unnecessarily under his own negligence. He finally came to his senses and liberated–through the key of promise–he and his companion.
This story reminds me of some rio grande turkeys I saw on my greenbelt run this morning:
Those turkeys were staying just ahead of me for about a mile. They were visibly scared by my presence, and could have easily escaped at any bend on the trail, but they didn’t. They unnecessarily continued to run out in front of me. Finally, they took to flight and easily fled the path they were on to safety.
After watching those turkeys fly to freedom and safety, I immediately thought about Christian and his companion, hopeful, in their similar predicament as detailed above, and began to draw applications to my life.
How many times have I stayed on a path of fear, insecurity, worry, jealousy, discouragement, doubt, greed, etc. when all the while God has given me a way of escape–promises from His Word?
How Does This Apply To Us Today?
- What path of fear, etc. are you remaining on that you need to fly from?
- What lies from the enemy are you believing that are keeping you bound up in discouragement, doubt, and despair?
- What promise of God’s Word can you claim that will shed light in the dark place you currently find yourself in?
- What friend can you share your situation with that understands you, the Word, and can give you godly and practical counsel?
Fly to the Lord…He is our refuge…He will put a new song in your heart.
“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He reached down to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud; and He set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.”
Psalm 40:1-3
— November 6, 2020