What are you running from?

So today is my first day in Bluffton for the summer. I have been looking forward to this for several weeks now. I'm not much of a writer so you will have to bear with me as I learn some things. It's been absolutely amazing to see how God has put His plan together in the lives of my family, this church plant, so many other people and even my own. He has freed me up to follow Him with such a blind faith, and it has been a challenge and a true blessing. As I write my very first blog I have ever written, it makes me think of how many opportunities we have to follow God into uncharted territories. We have many opportunities to follow Him, and almost always, if not always, when we follow Him it will be a very uncomfortable experience. The human tendency is to run from anything that has the potential to make us uncomfortable, even if it is the call of God...especially if it is the call of God. Today after My brother-in-law and I arrived in Bluffton at Carl Martin's house (Carl is the lead pastor/planter of Crosspoint Bluffton) we spoke with Carl a while and eventually began to settle in when Carl called me upstairs to his office to look at some rental houses online. As I walked up the stairs I began to think about the fact that Carl had his family pet upstairs with him...which by the way, is a ferocious beast. It seems as though for every step I took up the stairwell I recalled a different story that I had heard about Carl's Family pet..."She bit all three of our Associate pastor's children." "When we lived in Pickens she bit a UPS man." "The other day she attacked a pit-bull and bit it in the face." These were not comforting thoughts as I prepared myself to walk into the lair of this ferocious animal. Needless to say, as I topped the stairs, there she was, staring me right in the eyes. From that point on everything happened so quickly that I don't know how to explain it. The first thing I remember was the huge 12 inch fangs protruding from the mouth of the beast, the last thing I remember was the point when I realized that I had leaped completely over the rails of the stairwell to find myself hanging about 12 feet over the first floor. Attached you will see pictures of that exact ferocious animal, and let me tell you, looks can be deceiving. What you see right now is not what I saw when I was staring certain death in the face. Now as funny as it may be that I literally jumped over a stair rail to run from that little innocent creature (as some would cal her) I do have to ask you this question. What is it that you may be running from in life? I can tell you that for about 6 months I ran from the call of church planting, and I didn't get very far. We can run from a lot of things but when we run from God we always get caught. For some, they get caught the day they die. I don't suggest that you wait that long. For some, they get caught the day that their actions they have been keeping secret for so long are exposed to the world. This isn't a good option either. Yet, their are a few who are willing to give up before they ever get caught. I like this option. Some of you may refer to it as surrendering. So what are you running from? Is it a call that God has placed on your life? Is it sin in your life that you know you need to deal with? Is it giving someone forgiveness? Is it just the fact that you don't want to commit everything to Him? Or are you just running from a little dog? Whatever you are running from, the best option is always to surrender...unless of course you are running from a one foot tall 20 pound beast with huge 12 inch fangs. If that is the case, then run...run very very fast.