Obey for Safety

What I posted last night wasn't even the blog post I thought I was writing. I had one thought about The Hunchback of Notre Dame that I wanted to share with you, but as I was building toward that thought, I came up with another one (the problems with cloistering) and decided to run with it. The thought that I was originally planning to share was almost the opposite point. Looking at the analogy from a different angle, Frollo's plan actually makes a lot of sense.

Supposedly, Frollo is trying to protect Quasimodo. During the song I referenced last night, Frollo sings "How can I protect you boy unless you always stay in here, away, in here?" And, admittedly, he has a point. For Quasimodo, going outside is certainly going to be painful, physically and/or emotionally, and it may even be dangerous. However, Frollo ultimately can't stop Quasimodo from going "out there." The only way Frollo can protect Quasimodo from the world and its evils is to convince Quasimodo to stay in the cathedral's bell tower, where he'll be safe.

This is not much unlike God's only real method of protecting us from sin. He can provide shelters from the world's evils, but He can't/won't force us to stay in them. If we choose to, we can walk out of the shelter of the Gospel and walk straight into the face of temptation. Granted, even according to God's perfect plan, we do have to spend some time in this fallen world, but that doesn't mean that we need to partake of this world and its evils. Even while in the world, we're supposed to remain within the safety  of the Gospel. Physically, we are on Earth, but spiritually, we are supposed to be in, or at least pointing toward, the Celestial Kingdom.

So, God gives us commandments, just as Frollo gave Quasimodo rules and instructions. If we obey them, we will be largely protected from from the world. If we disobey and go beyond our bounds, we will be putting ourselves in spiritual danger. It's unfortunate that God's commandments can be seen as restrictive, just as Frollo's rules were, but God has the best of intentions, just as Frollo claimed to. God wants to keep us safe, spiritually, even while we are in the world, physically. To accomplish that, God gave us a set of commandments that will keep us safe, but they'll only work if we obey them. God wants to protect us, but just like Quasimodo, we each have to decide whether or not we'll stay within the safety that has been provided for us.