Have you ever thought about how many times you’ve created an escape plan to get out of something? It’s kind of an odd thought that seems to keep rattling away in my brain. I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually consciously thought of it as an escape plan, but I have to confess that as I look over the years, there have been times I have taken a path away from the hard stuff rather than facing something straight on.
The thing about escape plans is that they are created to get you out of danger. The problem is that the reality of being in eminent danger comes far less often than the number of times we create and follow our own escape plan to take an easier path.
And once you create and follow an escape plan when it isn’t really necessary it becomes all the easier to do it again….and again. You know how they say it takes 21 days of doing something for it to become a habit? That is true for escape plans as well. Before you know it, you find that you are going through life with escape plan living as your automatic response when things get tough.
Using escape as your plan for living is hollow; there’s no substance to it. It’s like floating through life on a fluffy pillow – nothing bad happens, nothing really good happens, you’re just bobbing along. There are no lessons that are learned, no opportunities to go deep and engage in the world and people around you. Sounds a little boring to me.
Before you just smile and nod and click to the next story, let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about. The Bible has all kinds of stories of people that tried to escape from the hard stuff, from the tasks God was obviously calling them to complete.
- Jonah was called to preach to Nineveh to repent of their sins and live for God. He got on a boat and went the opposite direction.
- David committed adultery with Bathsheba. When he failed to get her husband to sleep with her and cover up his sin, David sent her husband to the front lines of the battle and had him killed.
- The Israelites didn’t believe they could take on the people that populated the land God had promised to them, so they ended up wandering in the desert for 40 years.
- As Jesus wrote in the dirt, the accusers of the woman caught in adultery walked away one by one rather than admit they may have sin in their own life as well.
Living this way is not what God wants or has planned for us. We are created much stronger and more resilient that our human minds can comprehend.
So if escape plan living isn’t what God has in mind for us, what would the opposite be? I think the answer to this is what God has been nudging me to learn. The opposite of escaping something would be looking it right in the eye. It would be facing down the hard thing that my natural human nature wants me to run away from.
It’s being fearless knowing that God is bigger than any challenge I may face and that He is right there in the middle of it with me. In the story of the good Samaritan, a man was so badly beaten that passersby thought he was dead. The people who passed by seemed to have good excuses to escape helping him. But the Samaritan traveler stopped, looked him in the eye and took care of him; he saw him and did what he could to meet the wounded man’s needs.
On their way into the Temple one day, the apostles Peter and John noticed a poor lame beggar. The Bible says they stopped and looked at him intently. They saw him for who he was, someone who needed healing on the outside as well as on the inside. During their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man crippled from birth. Again, the Bible says that Paul looked straight at him. He understood the man had enough faith to be healed so Paul called for him to stand up, and he did!
Do you get the same message that I do when I read these stories? Every one of them has the act of looking someone straight in the eye, or really noticing the need, as the key to handling a difficult situation.
I’ve said before that being a follower of Jesus is hard work. It sometimes can feel like we’re traveling the opposite direction of the rest of the world. That makes us different; it makes us weird to the world who doesn’t understand that we answer to a much higher calling.
I need to be braver about sharing my faith. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with being Jesus to others and showing love whenever possible. What I’m talking about is leaning on God’s strength as I ask someone, “Do you know Jesus? Do you want to? Can I pray with you right now?” How often do we have those conversations with people, strangers or otherwise? I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’m not having those conversations nearly as often as I should. I sense that that is what God is asking me to really think about and start being braver about.
So I’ve been working on it. And I will continue to work on it and keep my eyes open and intently searching for people to share the saving love of Jesus with. Recently, someone asked me, “don’t you ever get afraid of what people will say or think about you?” I was reminded of the early church in Acts 4:23-31. The new Christians didn’t pray for protection from the hard stuff; they didn’t pray that God would take it away. Or that they would be popular with the people. They prayed for strength to get through it. They prayed God would give them the strength to look at the hard stuff intently so they could deal with it head on.
My answer is simple and true. It gives me courage so I don’t need an escape plan. Jesus’ last words to believers was to go out into the world and make disciples. I am commanded to preach Jesus to others. And when I’m afraid of what the world will think of me or am embarrassed to speak up, I have to remember, as a believer, I am to fear God rather than man. After all, man only holds temporary acceptance while God holds my eternity in His hands!
But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” – Acts 5:28
