The second verse of “I’ll Fly Away” identifies a problem with the attitudes of many, “Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away.”
Why don’t we think of life as “prison bars?” Surely that is the implication of the song. Certainly, “When the shadows of this life have grown” implies the infirmities of age. But more seriously, we need to consider that life is a prison that keeps us from home whatever the state of our health.
Have we become so comfortable on the compound that we no longer see the razor wire surrounding us? Everywhere we go we find corruption and wickedness. Instead of forming an escape committee to dig a tunnel, we long to join in. Many seek to blend in. Where is our holiness? Why do we not feel we are on “bread and water” rations as our beliefs are openly assaulted daily?
We line up to watch the latest movies, catch the latest TV series which are full of foul language, but much worse, every portrayal of love is contrary to God’s view; we cheer when the "good guy" exacts revenge on the "bad guy," forgetting that God said vengeance is his exclusive right (Rom 12:19). Do we not feel brainwashed? Deprogrammed? Do you wonder whether the angels marvel that we willingly subject ourselves to such?
Even when one is young and full of health, life is a prison. We can never be with God until we escape. We can never be free from temptation and filth until we fly away. No wonder many churches are being overcome with carnality. We do not teach our people to want to escape or to know that life is a prison. Nor, do we teach them the way free people live.
The world sees what we refuse to admit for no one asks concerning the hope within us when they see that ours is the same as theirs. (1 Pet 3:15).
We have the key in our hands and many simply lock themselves in every day. Now is the time to use it to set ourselves free.
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee (2Cor 5:1-5).
Keith Ward