The ones who flee from God
We care that the days of fasting be a holy period in which we meet with God and settle our account with Him. If you do not meet with God during the fast, you cannot feel the holiness of this period nor its effectiveness in your life. Try to meet with God and have a relationship with Him. On the opposite side, there are people constantly fleeing from God…
The ones who flee from God.
Fleeing from God is very ancient, since the beginning of creation, from the days of our father Adam…
Adam fled from God out of fear. When he sinned, he hid from God behind the tree, and said to the Lord: “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
When he was connected with God through love, he did not fear, nor did he flee. He desired to meet God. But now meeting God is difficult for him, so he flees from Him.
Jonah the prophet also fled from God when his thought disagreed with the thought of God, because of Jonah’s pride and his regard for his own dignity.
Elijah the prophet fled from Jezebel, and in reality he was also fleeing from God, because of the troubles and tribulations in which he was threatened with death… until God met him on the way and said to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?!”
There are people who flee from God because of the surrounding problems.
These problems occupy them and occupy their thoughts, so they become distant from God. But you, if a problem surrounds you, go to God. Open your heart to Him; reveal your troubles to Him. Share with Him; do not flee from Him.
A person flees from God because he is affected by the feeling that God is neglecting him (holding something against God), feeling that he is standing alone in his troubles, without help, without deliverance, and that God is far away. Such a person should reproach God as David reproached Him, saying: “Why, O Lord, do You stand afar off? Why do You hide in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1).
There are people who flee from God because of desire. They feel that meeting with God will deprive them of their desires which they do not want to leave.
There is a person who says: “I am tired, but I am comfortable with this situation!!”
If I walk with God, I will be divided against myself; I will enter into a struggle between the spirit and the flesh, and a struggle between good and evil. And I do not want to enter struggles… Many of this type do not want to face reality at all, because they fear it. Like a person sick with a serious illness who flees from the doctor, and from examination, and from X-rays and tests, in order to be at ease—though a false ease—fleeing from reality, because reality troubles him.
A person may flee from God because God assigns him a mission that troubles him, and he does not want to trouble himself. He says that God’s yoke is heavy and His burden difficult… while the Lord Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And John the beloved says about God that “His commandments are not burdensome.”
An example of this is a person who flees from service and its demands and burdens and duties and many responsibilities… He is fleeing from God.
From this type who fled from service were Moses the prophet and Jeremiah the prophet.
When God sent Moses the prophet to meet Pharaoh, he fled from this mission and said: I am not a man of words, not yesterday, nor the day before, nor since You have spoken; “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Perhaps Pharaoh will not listen to me… And Jeremiah said to the Lord: “I cannot speak, for I am a youth.”
Another person flees from God because His gate is narrow and His path is difficult…
He feels that as soon as he enters God’s path, he will enter tribulation. He is fleeing from God in escape from his cross. People want a person to be like them, to go along with them in their path, to walk with them in their ways, to laugh at their laughter even if it is improper, to approve their actions even if breaking the law, to cover for their thefts and lies even if he must lie to save them. If he does not, they persecute him and trouble him. So he flees from the path of the Lord…
Sometimes a person finds that those far from God are comfortable, while the children of God are in humiliation and distress, so he says: It is better for me to stay far like them…
The children of the world can save themselves with many tricks and achieve their interests in a thousand ways. With a simple lie every mistake is covered; with a forged medical report every absence is justified; with bribery and favoritism every task is accomplished; with leniency in morals many friends are gained… With two flattering phrases one can gain the favor of superiors and deceive them; with a little light hypocrisy one can gain people’s respect… And with a harsh blow and a hidden conspiracy one can get rid of all opponents…
But the children of God find their ways blocked, their tricks few, and they often fail.
That is why many flee from God. He is no longer suitable for the age, and His methods are not successful. And therefore a great prophet like Jeremiah cries out saying: “Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal treacherously?!”
There is a person who flees from God because he does not want to bear the responsibility of his sin…
And he does not want to face the consequences of sin, nor bear the demands of repentance… He says to you: What do you mean by repenting? Should I return and remember my sins, and grieve my soul, and enter humiliation of remorse and weeping and self-rebuke and the toil of conscience? What business do I have with all this?… Do you want me to enter a sense of guilt? Leave me comfortable; that is better.
Such a person is like someone who has a boil or an abscess. He does not want to open it or press it, and continue pressing and cleaning and bandaging it. He wants to leave it and rest!!
Repentance is difficult in the eyes of such people, and the world’s way is sweet and nice and easy, and it puts the conscience to sleep, and makes a person happy even if for a while.
These people live in a state of spiritual anesthesia, in a state of unconsciousness regarding their conscience. They flee from reality and from confronting themselves, and they flee from repentance and its requirements.
Another person flees from God because of people: he says that no matter what I do, I cannot please God. He demands holiness and perfection, and He says: “When you have done all, say: we are unprofitable servants.” And thus we see saints weeping over their sins. And since the road is long, and I will not be able to reach it, it is better to leave it.
There are also those who flee from God because they have something they cling to and fear losing to God. Some cling to their money, or their dignity, or their pleasures. It may even reach a humiliating level: like a young man fleeing from God because he clings to the length of his hair, or a girl fleeing from God because she clings to growing and coloring her nails!! As if God is on one side of the scale, and these trivialities on the other—heavier!
The dangerous thing is that those who flee from God flee from everything related to Him: they flee from the Church, from meetings, from Communion, from the father of confession, from the Holy Bible, from everything that reminds them of God! To these fugitives I say two words:
First: No matter how much you flee, God will search for you, and you will not be able to escape.
Second: God’s way is not gloomy nor difficult as you think.
David truly said: “Where can I flee from Your Spirit? And where can I hide from Your face?” Neither Adam was able to flee, nor Jonah…
You will not be able to flee, and fleeing is not for your benefit. You must face reality, and face it with courage and honesty.
And the first reality you face is your eternity. Does the path of eternity agree with your current path? Where is your current behavior leading you? To where, and until when? Suppose you manage to numb your conscience—will it remain numb forever? And when it awakens, what will you do with all this past? Face reality…
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?!
You must meet with God.
And in order to meet with God, you must first meet with yourself.
Sit with yourself first, just as the prodigal son sat with himself and thought about his state and found the solution… Face reality. Be honest with yourself. Do not flee from the truth, do not give things other names than their real ones, and do not deceive yourself.
Also do not think that God is frightening, or that He will reject you. When the prodigal son went to his father, he received him with fatherly embraces and slaughtered for him the fatted calf.
A great problem facing people is: How will he leave the sin while he loves it!! A person thinks that he will leave sin and remain with the same heart that desires it. No, God will grant him a new heart and a new spirit—a pure heart that does not love sin but refuses it, and finds no difficulty in staying away from it.
You now feel the heaviness of the commandment and its difficulty because you are at the beginning of the road and have not yet reached the love of God. This state will not continue.
The struggle between body and spirit—“the spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit”—is a struggle only at the beginning of the road; it is the striving of beginners. Later, when the body rises, is purified, and is sanctified, it will not lust against the spirit, nor will it endure a struggle, and it will enter into the rest of the children of God.
The narrow gate to which the Lord has called us is not narrow forever, but only at its beginning, then we enter into breadth.
Its early narrowness is a test of our will. Are we ready to endure for God or not? If we show our readiness, and endure, and strive, grace will visit us and lift the weight from us. Likewise the cross—we will carry it with joy, and walk with it toward Golgotha, but if we fall under it, God will send us a Cyrenian to carry it for us on the way…
Satan tries to deceive you when he portrays to you the difficulty and length of the road, and the difficulty of repentance and its impossibility.
In one moment you can transform from a sinner into a saint. Not from a sinner into a penitent, but into a saint. This happened with Mary of Egypt, and Pelagia, and Moses the Black, and others. God will take care of you, and you will find in the commandment delight and in the path of God pleasure…
Do not think that the children of God are sad while the children of the world are joyful. The matters of the world are sweet at first and bitter at last. And the paths of God’s children are bitter at first and sweet at last.
And even if the children of God appear troubled outwardly, they are joyful and happy inwardly. As Paul the apostle said: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Karaza Magazine, Fifth Year – Issue Twelve, 21-12-1974
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