Day 32 - Jonah

One of my favorite bands is Lady Antebellum, and one of their biggest hits is a song called "I Run to You".  It's a great song.  When I think about the word 'run', I often think of that song and the powerful words from the chorus, "I run to you, I run to you, yeah!"  I love that song.  I think of God when I hear it and how we run to Him.  The only problem is that we're often not running to God when the going gets tough, we're running from Him.

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”


3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish . He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Jonah ran, and though there are lots of things that speak to me about the story of Jonah, it is those first three verses that speak so loudly.  God called Jonah to the purpose for which he was created, and he ran.  I can't help but think:  are you running from God?  Am I running from God?  We run from God in many ways...

• We run from the responsibilities He's called us to as parents.
• We run from surrendering our finances to Him and His Church.
• We run from serving where and how He's calling us to serve.
• We run from relationships in which we know He wants us to invest.
• We run from greater commitment.
• We run from stepping into leadership.
• We run from the unknown future in God's will.
• We run from more responsibility
• We run from stopping unhealthy habits.
• We run from starting healthy habits.
• We simply run.

Why?  The times in my life that I've run from God it's been because, deep down, I'm lacking the faith that God will see me through.  Really, it's simply that I'm refusing to put my full trust in Jesus.  I'm trusting myself, so I'm running to what is familiar and comfortable.  God will always ask us to take a step out of our comfort zone, and the natural reaction is to run.

If we could just get it in our thick skulls that when we run from God we are running from our best life.  God is not asking us to a worse life, but to the best life we could ever imagine.  And when we run, we're running from our truest self, the self that we were created to be.  The cool thing, though, is that we can always stop, turn around and start running toward God.  Always.  Jonah finally did.  We can.  Turn-arounds are encouraged.  U-turns are permissible.  Isn't it time you sing a little Lady A to God.