Running Away from God

 When I was a child, we would play "Hide and Seek." I am sure that all of us have played this game at some time in our lives. Someone is chosen to be "It." The rest of the children are given a short time to hide, hoping to be able to get a place where they will never be found. However, most of the time we could not get away completely without being found at some point. That is certainly how it is with God. We might try to get away from Him, but it is impossible.

Jonah was a prophet of God, but he still decided to run away from God when God called him to go and prophesy against the people of Nineveh. (Jonah 1:3) "But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish." Let's not be too hard on Jonah, because many of us have done the same thing, just in another way. I pray we will learn from this.

The worst thing we can ever do is to try to get away from God. God may be calling you to salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but you are resisting Him. You might be trying to get away from God by going in the opposite direction and doing things that you know would displease God, all because you want to get your way, instead of having to obey the Lord. That is very unwise and never effective. God's way will always be better for you than doing what you think is best. Please, just give in to Jesus today.

Also, we, as Christians, can run away from God. He may be calling us to go to another place and do His will, but we want to stay where we are comfortable. We can try to resist and hide form Him, but He will keep pursuing us and even punishing us, until we listen to Him and go for Him. He might be telling us to take a particular ministry position at our church, but we don't think we could do it, or we don't want to do it. We need to give in to God and listen. Then, He can and will bless us for surrendering to His will. Let's never try to run away from the Lord and His will.

Tomorrow, I intend to read Jonah 3-4 and Micah 1.