Running Away
I’ve been thinking about Jonah this week.
His story in the Bible is one I’ve known for as long as I can remember. It starts with God telling him to go to the city of Nineveh and preach against the people’s wicked ways, and Jonah promptly gets on a ship… headed the opposite direction.
The rest of the story goes something like this: God sent a storm to get Jonah thrown off his ship into the sea, then sent a big fish to swallow Jonah for a few days and fix his attitude problem. Jonah had a change of heart, and when he prayed and called out to God, the fish spit him out on dry land. God again told Jonah to go to Nineveh. This time, Jonah listened.
There’s more to the story—including the revelation that Jonah’s heart attitude was not actually fixed by his short stint as fish food. But what I want to focus on today is the running.
I remember thinking, even as a kid, how stupid Jonah was for trying to run from God. Didn’t he know it’s impossible? Didn’t he know he was just delaying the inevitable? Despite his attempted escape, he ended up right where God told him to go in the first place. He could have gone from point A to point B, but went through the entire alphabet instead.
It’s easy to see—and easy to criticize—from outside the story, thousands of years later. But the reality is, I’ve done and still do the same thing today.
Granted, God’s never called me to preach a message of impending doom and repentance to an entire city. But He has called me to live my life for Him, and I ran away from that call for years. I thought if I kept doing what I wanted to do, He would give up or ask someone else.
It’s clear who won that particular standoff.
There are other things, though, smaller things that I catch myself running from. The fear of true authenticity. The time sacrifice of consistent Bible and prayer time. The weight of my various responsibilities. The long, winding road of healing.
I’m miles ahead of where I was even two months ago. But like Jonah, I’m still learning. It’s still easier to choose my current desires and emotions over the health and growth of my future self.
In one of my favorite books, one character calls another a “slitherer-outer”—he loathes discomfort and always finds a way to escape from hard situations or tough decisions. No matter what it does to his pride, others’ opinion of him, or his future, he will do everything in his power to be comfortable, unchanging, and safe in the present, even if it’s unhealthy in the long run.
I, too, am a slitherer-outer. I am the queen of the comfort zone, the president of stubborn stagnation, and the mayor of self-interest. Thankfully, God loves me too much to let me stay that way. And thankfully, there’s nothing I can do and nowhere I can go that He won’t find me and lead me towards better.
Better can be painful. Better can be awkward. Better can be humbling. Better can feel, for a time, like much, much worse. But I’ve come to understand that God will never put us through anything that isn’t for our good, the good of others, and His glory in the long run. The hard part is keeping sight of that pinprick of light ahead.
I don’t want to be like Jonah at the end of his story in the Bible: bitter, unchanging, and hard-hearted. Whatever it looks like, I want to embrace the better that God is working in me and has in store for me. I want to stop running and turn towards His light.
What’s He calling you to that you might be running from?
