Word of the Week: Run
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are all in the rear-view mirror. For most of us, those holidays meant time off from the busyness of our routines and the stranglehold of our diets. For others, it meant traveling to see friends or family. But for an even more elite few, it meant running. Running marathons. Running half-marathons. Running a bunch of K’s. Some people just want to greet the holidays in their running shoes.
I don’t get it. At all. I don’t get the desire to get up early, go out in the cold, and run. I’m much more content to hang out inside in my warm PJs all day. I don’t get someone’s desire to run on a day off – but I do get Jonah’s desire to run from God.
On Sunday, Steve Hohenberger started our series on Jonah. God called his prophet to go and preach repentance to Nineveh, the great enemy of Israel. God wanted the Assyrians to turn from their sin and be saved. But what did Jonah want? Anything but that. Jonah wanted to see his enemies judged. So instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah ran.
Christians talk about living according to God’s will. But let’s be honest, that’s way harder than we make it sound. It’s a delight when God calls us (or even better, calls others) to something we want. But what about when God calls you to something you don’t want? What if he asks for sacrifice? What if obedience requires patience? Then it gets harder and, like Jonah, we run.
Have you ever caught yourself running from God? It’s a revealing experience. Running tells us that we want something else more than we want God. We want the gifts more than the Giver, so we run away if it looks like God might cost us something. It’s wrongheaded – as Jonah will learn by the end of this book and many of us have learned by hard experience. The best this world has to offer pales in comparison to knowing God and being known by him.
What makes you run? When you feel yourself bucking against God’s will for your life, what sparks the fire? Is it control? Comfort? Admiration? The gospel tells us that, in Jesus, we have everything we could ever need. We don’t have to run; we can rest. Doesn’t that sound better than all this running?