The following is reported to have been an actual 911 call:

Dispatcher: 9-1-1

Caller: Yeah, I'm having trouble breathing. I'm all out of breath....I think I'm going to pass out.

Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?

Caller: I'm at a pay phone. North and Foster.

Dispatcher: Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?

Caller: No.

Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing?

Caller: Running from the police.

Our troubles don't typically result from our running from the police (at least, I hope not ). However, we do have quite a few problems as a result of running from God.

Jonah, of course, holds the world record in trying to run away from God. God commanded Jonah to go to one place and preach and Jonah headed in the opposite direction. Nineveh was east of Israel. Tarshish was far to the west. It was the most distant trading post of the Phoenicians. If Jonah had been successful, he would have been about 2,000 miles from Nineveh! It would like God telling you to go to New York City to preach and you go the airport and grab the first flight to San Diego. Jonah's intent was to get as far away as he could from the spot where God told him to go.


But it wasn't long before Jonah found out that a person can't run away from God. Now I suspect that Jonah realized that all along. I don't think he was so ignorant as to believe that he could actually run away from God and hide. But I think what he was trying to run away from was his responsibility to God. And that makes me realize that I'm a lot more like Jonah than I'd like to believe.

Because while I would never have the audacity to tell God face to his face, "I'm not going to do what you tell me to do", there are a lot of times I know what God expects me to do and I just don't do it. And that includes my responsibility to share the gospel with a community of people around us who are lost without Jesus Christ.

Maybe you've found that you're running like Jonah. Not physically. You're smart enough to know that you can't run away from God. But you just stop going to all those places where you know God is. Maybe you don't come to worship quite as often because you don't want to be reminded of what you know God wants you to do, or you try to avoid your Christian friends. Or maybe you don't pray nearly as often as you ought to, because you feel guilty, and you think that somehow if you stay away from God that he won't notice those things going on in your life. The truth of the matter is, we're all an awful lot like Jonah.

As Jonah found out, running away from God only makes life more difficult. It is important that we make up our minds instead to run with God .