Running into the Arms of God
Topic: God is our refuge and strength
Where are you going? Do you know the way? Why are you not there? Have you been distracted along the way?
We all are running from something,
We don’t want our past catching up with us, or we are trying to leave something behind.
Some are running around looking for answers,
Looking to find themselves, looking to fill the emptiness in their lives, and looking for meaning and purpose in life.
Satan is chasing us all the time, and the race is on.
Edward McKenzie Bounds once used a story told him by A. C. DIXON his close friend, to illustrate our need of God in our life.
"A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the chase, told me the following story: 'Rising early one morning,' he said, 'I heard the baying of a score of deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry. Looking away to a broad, open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across, and giving signs, moreover, that its race was well-nigh run. Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and crouched within ten feet from where I stood. A moment later two of the hounds came over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between my legs. I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the dogs. I felt, just then, that all the dogs in the West could not, and should not capture that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.' So is it, when human helplessness appeals to Almighty God. Well do I remember when the hounds of sin were after my soul, until, at last, I ran into the arms of Almighty God."
We need the arms of God since we have so much, pain, disappointment, and pressures in life.
God wants us to run into his arms: Example of the prodigal father: Luke 15:11-32
20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
We need to find our way into the arms of God
I used to have a dream which I understand is quite common in life.
I’m running hard and as fast as I can. The problem is that, as hard as I run I don’t seem to get any further away. The person is just as close to me, no matter how much I put forth.
Application: “It is not the running that makes me safe, but it is the arms to which I run”.
No matter what we might be facing in our life, we can confidently jump into God’s arms
Why doesn’t everyone run naturally into the arms of a loving God? I can thinks of several distinct reasons.
First there are under achievers, who would rather not deal with Gods plan for their lives. Some are satisfied with whatever life gives them. They are happy running from problem to problem.
Second some think in their mind they will loose more than they will Gain. They are not willing to totally surrender to God, so the drag their feet.
Third, Pride, some think that they can handle the situation at hand.
Fourth some hide from responsibility in life: Jonah is a good example of this, his plan was to flee the ends of the known world because God’s plan was not his will.
Fifth, we runback and forth to God. Some don’t fully understand all that God has done for us.
Anytime we’re happy just growing in our own strength, we’re setting ourselves for failure
We Are Safe in Gods Arms.
There are always times in life when we are in danger, or in difficulty or in over our heads.
Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we appreciate it or not, whether we deserve or not God is longing over us and longing to guiding us.
Being in Gods arms brings you security in life and enables you to face any danger, cross any river, and face any challenge with the sure and certain knowledge that God will be with you all the way.
Psalm 18:32 we find David writing, “It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.”
Those who have ran into the arms of God
They are content, joyous people.
A son’s reflections on fatherhood, abandonment, and forgiveness.
John Fountain, I believe in God. The God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives—from my life at age 4—the night police led him away from our front door, down the stairs in handcuffs.
The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, where the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my ‘hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; who claimed me when I felt like “no-man’s son,” amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, “everything’s going to be OK,” to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel His presence—whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life’s storms, telling me (even when I was told I was “nothing”) that I was something, that I was His, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance.
I believe in God, the God who I have come to know as father, as Abba-Daddy.
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have about the birds and the bees, or about nothing at all—simply feeling his breath, heartbeat, presence.
Finally, his alcoholism consumed what good there was of him until it swallowed him whole.
But sixteen years later, standing over my father’s unmarked Grave I said“I love you, Dad,” I said, wiping away tears, “and I forgive you.”
With that said, I climbed into my car and drove out of Long Corner Cemetery, away from Evergreen, Alabama, away from death and back toward life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that He—God, the Father, God, my Father—had found me
There are boundless benefits that come to those who have run into God’s loving Arms.
Psalm 91:1-4
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler."
Did you notice that verse 4 says God will cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you trust?
When danger is on the horizon, a mother hen spreads her wings and covers her little chicks with her feathers. Then she pulls her chicks in close - right underneath her wings. In fact, she hides her chicks from danger with her wings.
Well, just as a hen protects her chicks, God safeguards you with His strength and shelters you will His protective power!
God’s arms are open to the person who will seek him on his terms.
God’s arms close around the child ready to run to him and receive what he offers.”
When you take refuge and remain under the loving, protective arms of God, it doesn't matter what a situation looks like or how you feel, you can not be defeated!
Are you running into the arms of God with passion and excitement, or are you running into the arms of the world?
