I love the old Warner Brothers ‘Looney Tunes’
characters such as Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester the ‘Puddy Tat’; and of
course Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.
Someone has said, ‘the definition of insanity
is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.’ You don’t need to watch too many Roadrunner
cartoons to realize that Wile E. Coyote is insane! He does the same things over and over again as
if they are going to work. Wile E. is
constantly after Roadrunner; continually chasing what he thinks he wants. His sense
of self worth is completely tied to his pursuit of his worldly desires. When he fails, which he does, over and over
again, he walks away dejected and defeated.
In one episode, Zoom and Bored, the Coyote is up to his old tricks again. At one point in the madness Wile E. seems to
have caught up to Roadrunner and they come to a screeching halt in a cloud of
dust. Wile E. knows almost immediately
that he has lost again. The dust clears
from around Wile E.’s feet to reveal him standing on thin air. After a pitiful look at the viewer, he
plummets to the ground; it’s a long fall with a painful ending. As Wile E. falls, the dust clears from around
Roadrunner’s feet to reveal him standing on a solid rock ledge.
Now because it’s a cartoon, and because he is
enslaved to his worldly appetite, Wile E. gets back up and starts chasing
Roadrunner again, usually ending up back in the same hole (remember that
definition of insanity!)
In Matthew 6:25-34 Jesus urges His disciples
to look past the desires and appetites of the world for things which are more
substantive, more real. ‘Don’t worry’,
Jesus says, ‘about food, drink or clothes’.
In more modern terms He would say, ‘don’t worry about the iPhone, the
X-Box or the Ferrari.’ ‘Is not life more
important than food, and the body more important than clothes?’ (Matthew 6:25).
We need food and drink to live, and we must
trust God to provide these things for us.
We don’t need an iPhone or a Ferrari.
Sure there is nothing wrong with owning these things, but they aren’t
the important things in life.
What are the important things in life? Let’s think about Roadrunner.
Roadrunner knows that Wile E. is never going
to catch him, so he lives with a sense of joy and exuberance in life. Wile E. thinks he will be happy if only he
can get the right gadget to work; if he can catch Roadrunner. He needs what Roadrunner has- peace, joy,
contentment, freedom
God wants us to have peace and joy in our
lives.
Jesus said, ‘The thief comes only to steal
and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the
full’ (John 10:10). To follow Jesus, to
truly follow Jesus, is not a matter of keeping a bunch of rules and trying to
make God love you.
God loves you as much as He can possibly love
you—‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…’ (John 3:16). There is nothing you can do to earn His love
because He cannot love you any more than He does right now. And He will never love you any less. If you are in Christ, there is nothing you
can ever do to lose God’s love
Trying to keep rules is the work of the thief
who comes to steal, kill and destroy.
Living with a sense of peace that you belong
to God and nothing will ever change that…that is getting on the road of living
life to the fullest!
‘But seek first His kingdom and His
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’ (Matthew
6:33).
In life, particularly in our spiritual life,
we need to be sure we are chasing after the right things. If we chase the wrong things for too long, we
will find ourselves standing on thin air.
And if we chase the wrong things for our entire lives, we are in for a
long fall and we will find there is no bouncing back.
What are you chasing today?
