Don't Quietly Retreat from the World

(First published in The Wheaton Record, on December 4th, 2020.)

Do you remember that heart-pulverizing sequence at the beginning of the movie “Up?” Young Carl meets his childhood sweetheart Ellie; the two get married and grow old together. They dream of going to Paradise Falls. Eventually, Carl purchases the tickets to Paradise Falls only for his bride to pass away before they can depart. Deprived of the love of his life, Carl becomes a grumpy old man. These 10 most devastating minutes in Pixar history flooded movie theaters with tears. The director aimed at some of the deepest human experiences and hit the bull’s-eye, confronting every viewer with the painful reality of how time is flying by at an unstoppable speed, and all the while leaving behind an unchangeable past.

Carl then one day uses balloons to float away in his house to escape his life of drudgery and fly away to Paradise Falls. While this emotional sequence and his consequent balloon voyage may resonate with us, we all know that balloons cannot lift our sanitized and isolated dorm rooms up out of DuPage County. In the midst of the disappointments of this life, what hope do we have?

The book of Ecclesiastes exposes everything under the sun as vanity unless God is feared, loved, obeyed and known. Trying to escape the darkness of this world by flying off into adventureland or cowering in a monastery is vanity; yet thankfully, we have a Savior who has already entered this darkness and sends us to do the same. Jesus Christ is the light of the world who has come to dominate darkness and slaughter sin through His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, exaltation, intercession, second coming and eternal reign.

If you don’t know Christ, then learn from the opening sequence of “Up” that “you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” and that your short time on this earth will come to a close before you know it. Number your days, redeem the time and stop procrastinating: turn to Christ in repentance and faith before it is too late! Don’t lose another precious moment without knowing, fearing, loving and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you do know Christ, you can still learn from Pixar, for our time on earth is running out, and there is much work to be done. Let’s make best use of the time by urgently living for God in our devotional lives, school work, other responsibilities/activities and in reaching the lost with the gospel. Rather than escaping and retreating from the dark places of society, let’s invade them with the glorious gospel of Christ. As Greg Koukl likes to say, we should go and “give ‘em Heaven!”

As Jonathan Edwards was, let us also be: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way [we] possibly can,” as we invade this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ until the very hour we enter eternity.