"How Fast Can You Run?"

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:7-10 NIV).

Have you noticed that fast is rarely fast enough? In so many areas of our lives, we are in a constant search for more and more speed in everything we do. Whether it’s at home or work, we press or are pressed to do things faster. I was struck by the subtle change at the grocery store just recently. Many years ago, when I worked at my Dad’s grocery store we took much more time to wait on the customer. If I was working behind the meat counter, I’d wait on people one at a time and let them personally choose the cut of meat they wanted to purchase. If they wanted a little more trimming done, we do it before it was wrapped and sealed. Today you go to the meat section and grab a pre-packaged cut of meat all in a rush to get the other things you need and check out as quickly as possible.

And have you noticed how we now “check out” at the end of our shopping. It’s really subtle. There used to be one register and most folks waited patiently in line and visited with one another while their turn approached. Now there are multiple registers and we rush to find the one with the fewest people in line. It wasn’t that long ago when they added the “fewer than ten items” register for those who really wanted to speed things up. And then, to my own personal horror, there are now self-checkout stands. There’s just something about a machine telling me in front of God and everybody that I have somehow made a mistake in checking out. It’s nearly as bad as my GPS repeating “recalculating” when I decide to make a detour off its chosen route!

Well, here’s my thought: no matter how fast we seem to do things, it is never good enough. That’s especially true in your spiritual life. We all have areas of failure, whether it is noticeable by others or not. We all fall short of the glory of God and fall to temptations. And it seems that Satan is right there, taunting us, telling us that "we aren't fast enough for him." He seems to be repeating the “recalculating” phrase like my GPS, telling me that I cannot defeat him. In many ways he is right... we aren't faster than he is, we aren't smarter than he is, and by ourselves we cannot defeat him... but with God, well that's another story.

James gives us this clear message. If we resist the devil, if we resist his temptations, he will flee from us. If we align ourselves with God in every decision we make, Satan will run away, as running away from danger. In our lives, we may not always be able to go faster. We may not always accomplish every goal, or resist every sin. But as long as we continuously resist Satan and his temptations through the power of God’s grace at work in us through the Holy Spirit we don’t need to go faster. In fact, we can even slow down a bit and enjoy life! Wouldn’t that be nice? Remember, no matter how much control Satan has over your life right now, or how often you fail, you can still have victory over him. For with God, all things are possible! Slow down and take a little walk with your heavenly Father. That sends Satan running away as fast as he can go!