Running Has a Direction

Flee from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22, WEB)

Paul tells Timothy to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. We usually hear the first half and stop there. Flee. Get away from it, close the laptop, leave the room. That instinct is right, and there are moments when the only faithful thing to do is put physical distance between yourself and the thing pulling at you, without waiting to feel strong enough to stay. But notice that Paul does not leave Timothy running in the dark with no destination.

Fleeing and pursuing are the same motion described from two ends. You run from one thing by running toward another. A man who only tries to escape lust, with nothing better in view, is exhausting himself, and eventually he slows down and the old thing catches him. This is why so many of us feel like we are losing ground even in the seasons we are trying hardest. All our energy goes into holding a line, and holding a line is tiring in a way that going somewhere is not. Sooner or later the tiredness wins.

Paul points to what to chase, and what he names is less a checklist than a whole way of living, marked by faith and love and peace and shared with other men who want the same clean hearted freedom. He does not imagine Timothy doing this alone. The pursuit has company built into it, brothers running in the same direction, calling on the same Lord. That company is part of the escape, not a nice addition to it.

When you feel the pull tonight, do not just brace against it. Move toward something. Call the brother, open the Word, step into the company of people who want the same freedom you want. Give your running somewhere to go, and let the going carry you past the thing you were only trying to outlast.