The Runaway – The Reason We RunSample

Adrift

Jonah is running away physically on a ship, 2,500 miles from where he is supposed to go.Usually, disobedience doesn’t look like this for you and me. However, the three forms of disobedience we talked about will send you adrift far away from the things of God. All of these subtle ways of disobeying God send us adrift. 

Have you ever been to Hawaii? My wife, Codi, and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon and one of my favorite memories is when we went snorkeling. The little resort where we stayed had free snorkeling, so we went out to look at the coral reef. It was nothing intense—we only had goggles and the snorkel. So, we’re in the water and Nemo and all of his friends swim right past us. Codi went back to shore because she got tired and I just kept on swimming, staring at what was underneath me, when I saw something that looked like a snake or an eel—some type of sea creature coming for me fast. So I did what any normal person would do in that situation. I picked my head up, started screaming and swimming! As soon as the water cleared from my goggles I realized I was far away from the shore where my wife was. I thought, “How did I get here?!” I had no idea how I got so far! 

I realize this is what happens to us in our Christian walk when we disobey God. Slowly, we just go adrift. It’s not that suddenly we just realize our faith is not worth living. It’s that over time, we just slowly disobey God and begin questioning all our beliefs. 

Do I even believe God? 

I can’t even feel Him in this moment. 

My prayers aren’t making it past the ceiling. 

My marriage was going so good, how did it get here? 

Everything was going so well at work, how did I get here?

Suddenly, you are in this spot because of disobedience to God. In this context, we’re all runaways saying, “How did I get here?” I’ve seen very few cases of people running away from faith in a hurry. What I see is people taking one small step of disobedience after another and the next thing they know, is they’re completely adrift.