Running Away
August 5, 2001
Dear Friends,
Many times in our spiritual lives when the going gets tough, we have probably thought that life would be so much easier if we could just get off by ourselves and serve God. Perhaps the life of a spiritual hermit sounds appealing (and we may even deceive ourselves into thinking that it is profitable or favored by God), but the reality is that we cannot properly develop the character God desires away from other men.
Think about this concept in relation to the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. We have characteristics of the Godly man that include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
How is it possible to demonstrate these characteristics away from mankind? How can a man be generous without having someone to be generous toward? How can a man be patient or gentle without someone there to evoke our patience and gentleness?
Life in this day and age is not easy. This is especially true for the servant of Jesus Christ. Although we are given all things in Christ, we still have our sinful nature that is prone to sin. We long for a Kingdom that is still future. We are “stuck in the middle,” so to speak, between our former life of sin and the Kingdom of God on earth. It is a difficult position to be in.
This life “in the middle” is rife with hypocrisy, failure and disappointment. Jesus, we are told, learned obedience by the things that he suffered. We too learn obedience by the things that we suffer. Life “in the middle” is not pointless, but is one more thing that our all-knowing and loving Heavenly Father has given us to perfect our characters. Our faith must compel us to move forward knowing that everything in this life is in God’s control. He knows what He is doing. We may not know, but He does. Our responsibility is to worry about our job and let God do His. Part of His job is to test us with the things that irritate us so greatly we wish to flee from everything and everyone. We have to know, however, that anything He does to us and for us, He does out of love. He does not want us to run away, but to seek His strength in prayer, His mind in His Word and His character in our lives.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. They have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7 NIV)
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