Fleeing
1 Chronicles 10:7
“And when all the men of Israel that were in the valley saw that they
fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, then they forsook their
cities, and fled: and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.”
The sad part about these people fleeing is that the Philistines didn’t know that Saul had died.
Had these people kept on fighting, the Philistines would have never found Saul dead and Israel could have continued winning the battle. Just because Saul died didn’t mean that God died with Him. God was as much alive when Saul died as he was when Saul lived. The eternal God didn’t stop being eternal just because their leader died. Their choice to flee led to the heathen army gaining ground over God’s people, which should have never happened.
Fleeing is never to be a choice of the believer. Just because your problems seem to be overwhelming doesn’t mean that you should flee. Likewise, just because a respected spiritual leader falls into sin or dies doesn’t mean that you should flee from continuing to do right. Right is right, and God is God, even when a spiritual leader dies or falls into sin. You are supposed to be doing right, not because of your spiritual leader, but because it is what God commands you to do and because it is the right thing to do. Let me share with you several reasons why you should not flee from your troubles.
First, you can’t run from troubles for the rest of your life. Just because you change your landscape doesn’t mean that your problems are going to stop. Running has never been the answer to overcoming temptations or troubles in life. You will find that your problems and temptations will be where you flee to once you get there. Stop running and overcome them.
Second, you can’t fight when you are running away. My friend, fighting through your problems is the only way to get them to stop. God never commands the believer to retreat because faith is a forward motion, and the believer is to live by faith. It is always better to face your problems head-on and overcome them than it is to flee from them and let them become stronger as you run.
Third, the enemy gets a hand-up on you. When Satan sees you run, he then learns what to do to get you to run for the rest of your life. If you want to overcome Satan, you are going to have to face your problems where you are and show him that running is not one of your options.
Fourth, God’s name is always marred when you flee. The believer who runs from their problems tells the world that their God is not big enough to conquer the problems from which they are running. The world needs to see that God is always bigger than any problem you may be facing.
Fifth, you establish a bad habit in your life that becomes a pattern you follow. You will never run from your problems a second time if you don’t run from them the first time. When you run from your problems, you are creating a monster habit that will only get bigger the more you run.
Sixth, your habit of fleeing teaches the next generation to run when times get tough. My friend, you need to face your troubles and determine to overcome them; by doing so, you are teaching the next generation that the best way to deal with troubles is not to run from them but to face them and overcome them.
