2 Timothy 2:22
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Reflection:
It made me think of the word flee which means to run away, as far from trouble or danger. It is the normal thing to do if one encounters danger. But in this verse, the danger is the evil desires of youth. And when one is young, many desires need to be tamed.
What are the evil desires of youth?
Can it be the desire to belong to a certain crowd? Lust of the flesh?
Or sexual sin, pride, and impulsiveness. These things are all more difficult to resist when one is young, hormonal, and inexperienced.
But how about a grown-up or aging lady like me?
What kind of desires I should run away from?
Maybe to be passive, thinking that I have already done enough for others and since I am not young anymore…I can rest in serving, striving, learning, helping, and doing work?
Or maybe began to crave attention from others because I want to feel that I am still important?
Or to compete with the young ones or young once that do the same thing as me like blogging?
It can be a desire to be the best?
Desire to do many things that can clutter my brain?
What is the antidote for such desires?
It tells the youth and of course me also the older one to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
How can I pursue those things then?
Well, God is the righteous one and He is love and has the peace that transcends all understanding. It means that each one should pursue God. Good thing is that God is not running away. In fact, He is knocking at everyone’s door. The problem is that human desires hinder people to open the door to Jesus because their desires will collide with the holiness of Jesus.
But if we will do so, the reward will be very great. To have Jesus in one’s heart means to have peace during troubles, faith to move mountains, endurance to persecution and one will be able to love the unlovable. Desires will be pure, lovely, and admirable. We will be compassionate, patient, and bold.
Prayer: Dear God, with our effort, we could not be righteous. But thank You that with You in us…we are made righteous. Thank You that in You we can find peace, life, wisdom, love, joy, and provision. I pray for every heart to be opened for You. To be saturated by Your holy presence. Let us find the joy of having You in our lives. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen
