WHEN ESCAPE MASQUERADES AS FREEDOM

Stop Running and Get Healed

Beloved, there is a strange relief that comes with running.

When something breaks, when a season collapses, when disappointment settles in your chest like a weight you can’t shake, the fastest way to feel better is to leave. New scenery. New people. New routine. No explanations. No long nights with rubble at your feet.

Running feels like movement.
Rebuilding feels like standing still.

I’ve watched this play out more times than I can count. In hearts. In marriages. In churches. In callings. The moment something cracks, the instinct rises: If I can just get away, I’ll feel whole again.

And for a little while… you do.

There’s a story in Scripture that quietly exposes this tendency.

After Jerusalem was destroyed, the prophet Jeremiah stood among the ruins. Burned gates. Broken walls. A once-glorious city reduced to ashes. Many of the people didn’t want to stay. Egypt looked safer. Familiar. Predictable. They asked Jeremiah for God’s counsel, but their hearts were already packed for the journey.

God’s answer was not what they wanted to hear.

“If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you and not pull you down; I will plant you and not pluck you up.”
— Jeremiah 42:10 (NKJV)

Remain.
Stay.
Let Me rebuild.

But Egypt promised relief without repentance. Distance without dealing. And they ran.

Running spared them the ache of reconstruction, but it also robbed them of restoration.

This is the deeper truth we often miss:
Running can change your location, but it cannot heal what collapsed inside you.

Rebuilding is slow. It requires honesty. It asks you to sit with the Lord in the very place you’d rather avoid. To sift through what failed. To own what broke. To let God touch wounds you learned to ignore.

Running feels better because it postpones pain.
Rebuilding feels heavier because it invites healing.

Nehemiah understood this when he stood before a city that looked beyond repair. He didn’t rush past the ruins. He walked them. Measured them. Wept over them.

“So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.”
— Nehemiah 4:6 (NKJV)

Notice what Scripture doesn’t say.
It doesn’t say the people felt inspired every day.
It doesn’t say it was easy.
It says they had a mind to work.

Rebuilding requires resolve, not emotion.

And here is the mercy of God: He is not intimidated by your ruins. He does not shame you for what collapsed. He does not rush you past the grief.

He specializes in staying.

Some of you reading this are tired of starting over. You’ve changed jobs. Changed churches. Changed cities. Changed plans. And yet the same ache keeps resurfacing. Different setting. Same wound.

Dear one, maybe the issue isn’t that God is calling you forward.
Maybe He’s calling you deeper… right where you are.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”
— Psalm 127:1 (NKJV)

This isn’t a call to strive.
It’s a call to surrender your rubble.

Running asks nothing of you but motion.
Rebuilding asks you to trust God with unfinished walls.

And yes, rebuilding hurts more at first.
But it heals deeper in the end.

If you’ve been running, not from sin, but from pain…
If you’ve been avoiding the slow work of restoration…
If you’re tired of escape routes that never quite satisfy…

Right now, in your own words, whisper this prayer:

“Lord, I stop running.
I bring You what’s broken.
Build what I couldn’t fix.
Stay with me in the ruins.
I trust You to restore what fell.”

Beloved, the God who rebuilds does not abandon halfway.
What He starts, He finishes.
What He restores, He strengthens.

Stay.
He is closer than you think.

With Love,
Steve Porter
www.morningglorydevo.com

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