Where Can You Run To?

Where do you go when you’re in a place you don’t want to be? When you really messed up and did something, or said something you know you shouldn’t have? God established a place that offered safety for a person that sinned and then came to their senses. We can read about the Cities of Refuge in the book of Numbers. Moses instructed the people in Numbers 35:10, “When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, designate cities of refuge to which people can run to for safety if they’ve have killed someone accidentally. These cities will be places of protection [from those seeking revenge].”

But where do you go when your sin is against the owner of the City of Refuge, or God himself? Much like Adam and Eve, we often tend to hide from God. In Psalms 139:1-8, David wrote a psalm describing God’s nature to our sin versus our response to our sin: “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there….”

Perhaps our biggest enemy is when we find ourselves caught up in a spiritual place that we don’t want to be in, a sinful situation, is actually ourselves. We can be our biggest obstacle from receiving the unfathomable grace of God.

Peter reminded the “pilgrims of the Dispersion,” in 1 Peter 1:1 to put their hope in God’s amazing mercy and His incorruptible promises as our source of strength. And he later reminds them that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). This is another way God reveals His nature to us. Instead of revenge and justice, He prefers righteousness and mercy (2 Peter 3:9). This is what Nicodemus discovered about God’s nature in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

As we consider the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), try to consider what God wants us to do when we’ve been burdened by sin, when we’ve wandered far away from home, when we’ve turned our back on Him -- He wants us to run to His home, to His presence. The prodigal son found great peace in coming to the realization that in his father’s presence is where he needed to be.