You can run but you cannot hide

My brother was VERY spoiled. I don’t know why to this day, but for one reason or other my parents favored him over me and not just a little; a lot! This caused real problems for me emotionally and I did not react well to it. He was constantly getting me in trouble and we often fought with reckless abandon. One or both of us usually ended up with a bloody nose or cut lip.

If anyone messed with the other though, they better look out as we were fiercely loyal to each other, but one day I got in a fight with a friend of his. My brother grabbed me from behind and allowed the other kid to hit me hard in the stomach. I cursed the kid and when we got home that afternoon, my brother tattled on me for calling the kid a rather nasty name. “I called him a name because he was hitting me in the stomach while my brother held me”, I cried to my mother. For whatever reason, she ignored my reason for cursing the other boy and gave me a whipping and then when my Dad got home she ratted’ me out to him, and then he gave me a “real” whipping. I ran away from home.

I did not get very far. A military policeman picked me up and took me home. I was about eleven years old and lived on Guam. At the time my father was in the service and we lived on a military base. The odds of my escaping from home and running away from my problems were rather limited; in fact they were slim and none. An eleven year old cannot get very far on Guam in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and inside a military base. What I got was another whipping.

Even though that happened decades ago it is still vividly implanted in my mind. I remember it like it was yesterday. Later when I got older, true to form I tried to run away from many problems for many years and I also tried other forms of escape. Just like when I was a little boy, I found that I could not escape my problems from running away from them, or from drinking alcohol, or taking drugs, or from fighting and beating someone up. It just created more problems.

Eventually I learned that I must face my problems head on and that life is not always fair and we just have to deal with the cards that we are dealt. Having the world’s biggest self-pity party and then being sad and running away from home just because nobody came and you didn’t even have a cake is as useless as running away from home on a military base on the island of Guam as an eleven year old.

Face your problems head on and understand that God is right there with you every step of the way. Nothing can defeat that combination.

Matt. 11:28
Come to Me you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My
yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light.