I Used to Run Away

The first thing I thought was, “God, I don’t want to do this.” But then I said beneath my breath, “Yes, I want to do this. I want to do hard and holy things.”

I want to do the thing that’s kicking me in the gut right now. That is making me feel fearful and unworthy. I want to do that. I want to show up to my life—whatever it looks like. I don’t want to run from it anymore. I don’t want to wish it away, wish it was something else. I want to be in it fully and faithfully.

God, I want to know that if my heart rips out of my chest, you’re in that with me. That you know that feeling and you’re close to that kind of brokenness. That you don’t run from it, so help me not to run from it either.

I used to pray for escapes, for ways out, solely for deliverance. Now I also pray for character, for strength, for endurance, for stronger knees.

I used to want to run away. Now I want to run toward.

It reminds me again of the summer weekend we spent at the cabin in the woods of Tennessee.

The chatty woman at the Visitor’s Center warned us of bears. I knew in my gut we were going to find one waiting for us. We did, we came face to face with a black bear.

I ran away, while I watched other people run toward. They stood around him with a sense of awe. Shoulder to shoulder with something that could rip their heart out.

Sometime after that year, I became determined to start running toward. Because I hated the idea of a life that misses the awe-inspiring and wonderful because of fear.

The fear of pain is something that I’ve wrestled up and down every mountain I’ve ever climbed. The fear that the view won’t be worth the pain. That one second of beauty isn’t worth the excruciating agony it might take to get there.

But that’s where I realized I value my own life too much—my own comfort over God’s heart and beauty. Because that second of beauty reflects something that connects me to Him in a way that nothing else ever has, ever can.

“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” -Psalm 84:10

Better is the one second in His risky beauty than the thousands I find in my self-preservation.

Better is the moment of colliding with awe and wonder. Of leaving the fear behind, than the long trek back down the mountain in my self-soothing fearful life of safety.

God, I want to do hard things. I want to run toward. I want to value your beauty over my best-laid plans of self-protection.

God, I want to choose the hard things, not because I think you always require it but because I know there’s something worthy in fighting the fear. Because I know what it is to walk back down the mountain having missed a chance at seeing another glimpse of you.