In 1981, a Minnesota radio station reported a story about a stolen car in California. Police were staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of placing announcements on local radio stations to contact the thief. On the front seat of the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced with poison. The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait. Now the police and the owner of the VW Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than to recover the car.
Why do people run from authority? There are several possible reasons: (1) They know they are guilty. (2) They want to escape punishment. (3) They think they can get away. You might be able to think of a few other reasons, but whatever the reason why people flee authority, it will always comes back to bite them. Whether by the authorities on this earth or by the Lord later. In reality, running from the authorities is a lost cause since God always wins.
How can people actually run from an omnipresent God anyway? While we can never physically run from God, we run from God when resist Him through sin and are not repentant. Jonah is one of the most well known examples of a person running from the Lord (Jonah 1:3). He did everything he could to get away but ended up getting swallowed by a great fish (Jonah 1:17) and doing what the Lord wanted him to do anyway (Jonah 3:1f).
It is interesting in the above illustration about the stolen car that the authorities wanted to find the man more to save his life than to apprehend him. So often when we run from God, we feel it is to escape punishment from Him or something similar. However, in the end, all we are actually doing is eluding His rescue. Running from the Lord is never the answer. While we may have to face some form of punishment for our actions, is it not better to face temporary and relatively minor punishment here on earth than face the most intense and severe punishment for the rest of eternity? God simply wants to rescue us from our sin and eternal punishment. Let’s remember to never run from authority, but instead to run toward it in repentance.
–Brett Petrillo