Run Just As Fast As You Can
I
love when afternoons don’t turn out the way we plan for them to. We had plans
to shop and enjoy the afternoon off, but God had much greater plans
for us. As
we finished up our group discussion by the lake we noticed that the storm was
coming and if we didn’t hurry back we would be caught in it. As we started to
head back the distractions set in and we were continually getting distracted
from reaching our destination. Little did we know there was a purpose to the
chaos.
As
we finally got through all the distractions and began to race back, there was a
woman sitting in our path that grabbed the heart of my teammate Tara. Tara
knelt over and began to pray for the woman. The team one by one came around her
and began to pray over Tara not knowing what the woman was telling her. After a
moment we stepped backed and let Tara be with the woman. As it started to pour
we began to wonder up a path to put our bags under a small shelter. It was then
th
at he caught my eye. He was so cute and had a smile from ear to ear. It was a
five-year-old little boy named Thomas.
Thomas
and I bonded right away as I swept him off his feet we began to bond. With the
limited Spanish I knew we tried to communicate, but I quickly learned that I
could communicate just fine without Spanish. We began to laugh and play and he
stole my heart. Soon after meeting Thomas he showed me his family and we went
to join them to take cover from the rain. It was pouring by this point and
beginning to really storm, but that was not going to stop Thomas from having
fun.
Thomas
darted from the small tin roof we were standing under and began to play in the
rain. He decided to climb onto the stonewall near the shelter. The wall was
smal
l and on either side there was a steep drop. Thomas didn’t see the danger
in running on the wet stonewall but his father did. His father began to call
for him and ask him to come back. Thomas kept his eyes on his father and ran as
fast as he could. He ran straight back to his father who was calling his name.
As
I began to look back on this day I realized a very important lesson that I
learned from the afternoon with Thomas. Run. Run just as fast as we can. Don’t
look to see what danger is on either side of the stonewall, just run. Run to
the father as He calls out our your name. Run even in the stor
m, and run with
an attitude of hope.
We
are just like Thomas. We are often standing on a stonewall in the midst of a
storm with danger on all sides of us. The run won’t always be easy, but if we
keep our eyes focused on Him we can run through the storms and through the
danger. He is calling our name and He simply wants us to run to Him.
