By Aliang
Once in a meeting, I heard one brother’s experience of practicing parkour.
He said, “I got started practicing parkour in senior high school. I made up my mind to practice it after watching some related videos online. Then, I was sinking my teeth into parkour. In class, at dinner, even speaking to people, all I’m thinking is how to make my action much cooler. I didn’t have the bandwidth for studies. My family worried about me and tried to talk me out of indulging in it many times, but to no avail. Finally, I neglected my studies. Because of my parkour obsession, I neither had normal communication with my family and friends at all, nor did what should I do at my age. I absolutely lost my normal thoughts, conscience, reason and the ability of communication. Moreover, I became more and more arrogant. With my nose in the air, I didn’t know how to speak to others, and I became more and more withdrawn.
“In 2013, my mother talked me into believing in God. Through reading God’s words, I realized why I was hooked on parkour. It is because Satan makes me pursue to be a superman by parkour. This is a way Satan harms man. I enjoyed pushing the envelope and tried to make kinds of dangerous movements. If I went on practicing it, not only would I cook my goose, but I would also be in danger of losing my life. Later, after brothers and sisters’ fellowships, reading God’s words and praying to Him many times, I gradually returned to normal and no longer indulged in parkour. I tried to have heart-to-heart talks with my mother. In addition, I can do some housework. My mother wore a smile when she saw my changes.”
On hearing his experience, I felt a little bit confused. Parkour is only a hobby, why does it make people become abnormal? What is the main reason for it? If parkour is merely a popular form of recreation, people are not supposed to be crazy about it. With doubt, I searched the videos about parkour. Watching those people in videos running freely like knowing kung fu, I envied them. But the following reports showed me different results.
It was reported:
In June 2012, one 24-year-old girl in Saint Petersburg fell seventeen floors to her death when she jumped from the roof to another overhanging eave.
In 2015, one 15-year-old American boy fell to death when he practiced parkour on the roof.
In November 2016, Eliseyeeff, who was twenty years old in Russia, fell twelve floors to his death when leaping between buildings. He was known as a chess prodigy. He once won the world champion of 16-year-old group in 2012, and was awarded the title of grandmaster at seventeen years old. But a young life passed away because of parkour. How regrettable it is!
In 2016, in order to show off his skills of parkour to his friends, a 13-year-old Russian teenager climbed the ninth floor in an abandoned building and hanged outside. Accidentally, he fell to death because the bricks fell off.
These cases above in the reports startled me. The parkour made me feel terrible. It’s not cool at all. It will kill us at any time. Indulging in parkour is to commit suicide. In an interview, one founder of a parkour group stressed, “The people with parkour skills in videos have been training for a long time. The youth must understand that. And not everyone can imitate those actions”. But, why don’t a bunch of youth understand, still obsessed with parkour but neglecting their lives.
With confusion, I opened the book of God’s word, “Nowadays, many people practice parkour. Have you ever practiced parkour? Do you like it? (I really like that feeling.) How can you like that feeling? What is that feeling exactly? (It’s the feeling of leaping over roofs and up walls. It’s very exciting.) Is that normal? (No, it isn’t.) If it’s not normal, how can you still like it? (It’s just showing off.) That feeling gives people a kind of visual and emotional stimulation, so everyone yearns to do it. What governs this thinking? Why do people like this thing? Is there some feeling in people’s hearts that they want to save the world, to be supermen? There are many movies and TV shows which feature flying heroes that fly here, there and everywhere, leaping over roofs and up walls, and people really envy them. Thus, the brains of the current generation of young people are seeded with these things and are poisoned. How come they can be poisoned with these things? This has to do with a kind of need within people. Why do those people like parkour so much? Don’t they know that it’s dangerous? Don’t they know that they can be killed doing it? People are not spiders, nor are they geckos. They don’t have the same ability. If they cling to a wall, they will most certainly fall back down. Before you jump down off a roof you will think what part of your body you can land on so that you won’t get hurt or break something. When there is nothing on a wall for support, those people are still able to climb up and jump down, which is exciting for them, much to the admiration of the viewers. So what governs this thinking? (People live boring lives, so they go looking for excitement.) This is one type: Young people are wont to go looking for excitement. They are so empty and bored and they don’t know what to do for the best. There is another thinking governing them, which is that people have a desire in their hearts to be a certain type of person, and they long for a kind of power, and for a certain something. This something that people yearn for is to have supernatural powers and abilities, and not what normal humanity possesses. People want to be heroes, supermen, capable men, and people who have extraordinary abilities; in other words, they worship Satan in the unawareness of their hearts. What kind of person has that kind of physical ability and the guts to do it, who really can leap over roofs and up walls and fly here, there and everywhere like Spiderman or Batman? Without a doubt, it could only be someone who has been possessed by evil spirits who could have this kind of ability. Does mankind created by God have this kind of ability? Does God make people practice parkour when they have nothing else to do? Was parkour around at the time of Adam and Eve? Why didn’t they practice parkour? Is there anything about parkour in the Bible? Why did people in that age not practice parkour, but so many people do it nowadays? It is most certainly because people have been influenced by certain ideological trends and influenced by film and television. These things are not needed by their hearts but instead are things that lead them toward evil trends. People are simple-minded and have no discernment, and they happen to like these things, they like strange things, exciting things and the extraordinary abilities of Satan. People seek these things and they define it like this, “I like heroes. Aren’t Spider-Man and Batman heroes?” Do the actors have these abilities? No, they don’t. Satan uses this method to invent, fabricate and play out some stories, and then it deceives these simple-minded, brainless adolescents. Once you have been influenced, these things enter your thoughts and become a kind of poison. Is it then easy to remove and cleanse yourself of this poison? You only need to fail to see through this poison for one day and you will then be unable to give it up completely, and you will have been influenced, disturbed and controlled by it for that one day”(“Young People Should See Through the Evil Trends of the World”).
After reading God’s words, I got to know, Satan fabricates many supermen and capable men to deceive us, making us worship them so that we pursue to be a superman. Now thinking of this, can a normal person leap over roofs and up walls? Only those who has been possessed by evil spirits can have this kind of ability. Satan uses this method to fabricate and play out some stories, and then it deceives us youth. Because of lack of experience in life, lack of truth and discernment, we are easily deceived by these new things which looks cool and awesome. Actually, too many similar tragedies have happened in the course of practicing parkour. However, people who are deceived by Satan cannot see the truth clearly, still joining the parkour masses wave after wave. This is caused by the lack of discernment of Satan’s evil plot.
It can be seen from these instances that Satan has really taken pains to corrupt mankind. We all live under the domain of Satan. If we didn’t come before God and seek His care and protection of Him, we would be devoured by Satan. Think of the experience of the brother, who once practiced parkour to be a superman, living in fantasy world. Not only did he neglect his studies, but also lose his humanity. By contrast, those young brothers and sisters, who are in the church, can shun evil and stay away from the tide aroused by Satan. Moreover, they can perform their duties of a created being in God’s family and walk the right path in life. What great blessing this is! Thank God for saving us. If not saved by God, can’t we be one of the decadent generation?
