Ever have that feeling that you
have been running
from something? Or Someone?
Maybe for so long that you can't remember what you've been running from? I sat here for about 10 minutes with snippets of an old childhood poem I remember reading in one of my favourite books growing up,
Arrow Book of Funny Poems, which I was finally able to track down via Google:
The Ostrich
(Mary E. Wilkins Freeman)
The ostrich is a silly bird,
With scarcely any mind.
He often runs so very fast,
He leaves himself behind.
And when he gets there, has to stand
And hang about till night,
Without a blessed thing to do
Until he comes in sight.
If God calls you to do something, and you don't do it, is it sloth or sin? Yes, he gives second and third and fourth chances - but, usually, those chances are to do what we should have done the first time around...not opportunities to re-write the script. Do we run, frantic, attempting to track down our "place" only to realize we probably had a better grasp of the complete picture before we started running?
God is patient. God is kind. He'll wait, as we wait, to figure out what's gone wrong, to figure out why we're inside the belly of a giant fish, to recall, dimly, that there might have been something that we were told to do...
"God's calling and you're the one
But like Jonah you run
He's told you to speak
But you keep holding it in,
Oh can't you see it's such a sin?"
- Keith Green, Asleep in the Light
