The Fugitive

Some of you youngsters will not believe me and thus will do a Google search to determine if I am telling the truth concerning what I am about to reveal to you. I must say that it does make me grin a little on the inside when I pull out a piece of "ancient" history that causes my younger readers to shoot me a message saying, "I didn't believe you until I Googled it." Believe it or not, young ones, there once was a television series called "The Fugitive" that starred David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble long before the movie starring Harrison Ford as the wrongly accused doctor and Tommy Lee Jones as the FBI agent who relentlessly pursues him (two of my all-time favorite actors, I might add). I grew up watching reruns of the TV series with my white-haired Granny Waddle, and each time the famous movie is on the tube, I watch it even though I've probably seen it a hundred times.

I always tear up at the end of the movie when Tommy Lee Jones tells Harrison Ford that he knows he's innocent, and the scene in the police car when the hardened FBI agent uncuffs Dr. Kimble's hands and places an ice pack on his wounded wrists gets me every time. Each time I watch the movie, I always wonder ... how far would I go to defend my innocence? How long would I search for justice? How tempted would I be to just give up and spend the remainder of my days behind bars? And today, for some reason, the whole fugitive thing has me thinking ... and thinking ... and thinking.

As I often do when I get a word or a concept stuck in my head, I go to the trusty dictionary in search of deeper meaning or perhaps just simple confirmation of what I already believe to be true. While the first definition of the word fugitive was what I expected, "running away or taking flight," some additional meanings surprised me and have served only to cause me to ponder even harder about what it really means to be a fugitive. "Being of short duration; likely to evaporate, deteriorate, change, fade, or disappear; being of transient interest." Hmmmm ... hmmmm ... hmmmm. If I ascribe to the secondary definitions of the word, then I think it's safe to say that all of us are fugitives in this earthly life ... we are of short duration; we evaporate, deteriorate, change, fade and disappear; and most, if not all, of us are creatures of very transient interest.

Having "fessed up" in my last blog about the season of life that I'm currently plodding through, perhaps my senses are heightened in regard to how quickly life as we know it can change. Almost overnight, things that you once took for granted can vanish, and suddenly, you're face to face with the very real meaning of "being of short duration" and of how important it is to treasure those parts of life while you have them. I think I'm beginning to understand that God may want me to grasp and know to the core of my being that I truly am a fugitive here on earth.

Father God, I pray that You will teach me to use my short duration in this life to serve You, to love You, to praise You ... that while I'm a fugitive, I'm running toward You and You alone.