Wilber McLean & Jonah

On July 18, 1861 the most destructive war in American history began on the farmstead of Wilmer McLean in Virginia.  The battle became known as the First Battle of the Bull Run.  McLean, a 47-year-year-old retired Virginia militia man, was too-old and too-apathetic towards the Confederate cause to join in the war effort.

Add to this that the war's first battle was fought on his front lawn and McLean had had enough.  He sold his estate and moved some 120 miles south to a small, rural town in Virginia that McLean thought would be too-insignificant and secluded to ever have to deal with the growing war: Appomattox County, Virginia.

However, despite his best efforts to disappear and get away from the war, on April 9, 1865, Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant sat down at a table inside the parlor of McLean's house to finalize the terms of the Confederacy's utter surrender and the end of the Civil War.  No matter the lengths that McLean went to get away from the war, he couldn't escape it.  He was there at the very beginning and the very end.  Later, McLean is quoted as saying, "The war began in my front yard, and ended in my front parlor."

McLean's story is one of those great tales of how inescapable destiny can be.  Although the particulars are vastly different, the well-known story of Jonah tells the same thing, but instead of trying to run from an impending civil war, Jonah tried to run from God Himself.  However, no matter how far Jonah tried to run from his destiny to prophecy to Nineveh, he could no get away from God.

This should be a reminder to us all that what God has for is what He has for us and when we try to escape of run away from those things, all we are doing is adding consternation and pain in the long run.  Instead, we should make an effort to seek after God's specific will for our lives and to consistently pursue that will in earnest.