Where do I run to?

I just got back from snow tubing with my youth group at Ruidoso Winter Park in you guessed it, Ruidoso! It was as always a fabulous time with the kids but needless to say, I am exhausted. When we first arrived, I must say that the tubing runs were a bit intimidating at first. Let me be perfectly honest, I was scared to death. It is interesting how a person’s inhibitions increase as they get older, or at least mine have! However, I noticed something very interesting after the teens convinced me to go down one of the tubing runs in a train (where you go as a group in individual tubes with the person in front of you holding on to your feet). I very quickly developed a trust with the person in front of me and in back of me because they knew what they were doing and had walked me though the process including proving trustworthy in taking care of me as corny as that may sound. When we went as a train the next few times, I had the same person in front of me and the same person behind me and to be perfectly honest, I do not know if I would have gone any other way.

I thought about how many times in my own life God has proven Himself faithful; not because He is under any obligation to me but because of the depth of love and care that He has for me. I considered how quickly I attached myself to Jocelyn and Juliana because I recognized beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had my best interest at heart. I contemplated whether or not I do this with the Lord. Do I run into His arms only when I fear or when bad situations arise or to feel safe or do I simply run into His arms because He is the I AM and I am confident that His embrace and grip will transform me into a better man of God than I was the day before?

I think about the woman in Luke 7:36-50 who stood behind Jesus at His feet weeping. The interesting thing to note here is that this word for weeping doesn’t just denote a few tears but it literally has the meaning behind it of rain showers. I want to attach myself to the Lord like this woman did each and every moment of life. Where do I run to regardless of the situation? I will never cease to strive to run straight into the arms of the Lord where true recognition of who I am and who He is will always take place.

The Touch

What was the woman thinking when she went to touch Him? Did she know who she was? Did she know what she was? What about the risk? “If I just touch His garments, I shall get well.” Mark 8:28 lets us know exactly what the woman who had been bleeding for twelve extensive and arduous years was thinking when she converged to simply graze the One who could solve what no one and nothing else could including her own money. Rather than getting better, she got worse over those agonizing years. But when she did touch the One, “And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” (Mark 8:29)

What about us? Are we willing to take the risk to daily converge upon the One who will forever make us different, for the better? Are we so broken because we have exhausted all other options, financial and otherwise to the point where we have no one and nothing else to turn to? Society would view this as complete and utter weakness but it was only then that this broken, bleeding, social outcast was able to be forever changed and healed because of the touch of the One. Am I that desperate? Am I that broken? Am I that willing? What do I have to lose and is it worth the risk?