Running Away!

When I was a teenager, I had a tendency to want to run away from my problems instead of facing them.

Many times my mother warned me, "You can't run away from yourself."

That is probably one of the wisest things she ever told me. Even now, when I feel like running away from something, her words still ring in my ears.

I know now that if I try to run away, I will find myself facing the same problems again, sooner or later, until I face myself and resolve them.

A corollary to "you can't run away from yourself" is, "You can run, but you can't hide."

You may try. You may even hide from yourself. But you can't hide from God!

In one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 139, David describes it this way:

Courtesy Google.com

Why don't you read the entire psalm. In beautiful word pictures, David says that God knows our routines (vv. 2-3); our thoughts (vv.2, 4); in fact, He knows everything about us (v. 5).

Did you know that God loves us so much He can't take His eyes off of us?

Many people find it disconcerting to think that God knows them so well, but David found it comforting. Instead of running away from God, David ran to God. That's what we need to do too--run to God.

Socrates said, "Know thyself."

Psalm 139 goes even further. David writes that God knows us even better than we know ourselves. 

The psalmist's response is:

Courtesy Google.com

David invites God to search his heart, identify anything in him that offends God, and guide him in the way that leads to everlasting life.

Jeremiah also realized that "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked" (17:9). "Who can know it?" he asks. Like David, he invites God to search his heart and test his mind.

Have you invited God to search your heart today? 

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