Don't Kick a Squirrel

What happens when you're so busy running away you forget to look where you're going

I almost kicked a squirrel this morning.

Not intentionally, obvs.

Binx (the dog, for the uninitiated — a delightful bundle of floof who lives his best life darting in and out of undergrowth) shot off to the right, startled something, and a squirrel came shooting across the path at exactly the wrong moment. One more millisecond and I’d have booted the thing, hard.

But it was fleeing so fast it never saw me coming. It was so busy sprinting from whatever was behind it that it had absolutely no idea what it was running into. Head down, legs going, full pelt — straight towards a size two trainer/sneaker (yes, I really am that small).

And I thought, I wonder how often we do that. Not the squirrel thing. The running thing.

We get so focused on getting away from something — a situation, a conversation, a season, a version of ourselves we’d rather not sit with — that we’re not actually looking where we’re going. Just moving. Fast. Away. Onto the next thing. Which might sound like progress but let’s face it, isn’t always.

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There’s a woman in Genesis who knows something about this. Hagar — a used and abused Egyptian slave who ran when things got unbearable with her mistress. And you can’t blame her, her circumstances were genuinely awful. Running made complete sense.

But God shows up in the wilderness, right in the middle of her escape, and asks her two of the most searching questions in all of Scripture:

“Where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8, NIV)

Not as an accusation. As an invitation. Because Hagar could answer the first question — I’m running from my mistress Sarai — but the second question? Silence. She had a ‘from’. She didn’t have a ‘to’.

Ooof. That’s the thing about running away. It always has a clear starting point but a surprisingly vague destination. We tend to know exactly what we’re fleeing. We’re considerably less sure about what we’re heading towards. We’re just . . . going. Away. Anywhere that isn’t here.

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Friends, do you notice how God didn’t scold her for running? He met her in it. He saw her (her situation, her fear, her exhaustion, her fury) and He gave her both direction and promise. Go back, He said. And I will multiply your descendants beyond counting. The interruption wasn’t punishment. It was orientation. God stepping right into the path and saying: before you go any further — do you actually know where you’re going?

Years later, in Genesis 21, Hagar finds herself in the wilderness again. Different crisis, same desert. She’s out of water, out of options, certain that she and her son are going to die. She puts Ishmael under a bush and walks away because she simply cannot bear to watch.

And again — God shows up. Not with a lecture, but with a question:

“What’s the matter?”

And then He opens her eyes.

Right there, in front of her — a well. Water. The very thing she needed, and it had been there all along. She just couldn’t see it.

Because when we’re in full flight — from pain, from pressure, from the thing we cannot face — our vision narrows right down. We see the threat behind us and the blur ahead of us and almost nothing in between. Including the provision. Including the grace. Including the wells that were there the whole time.

Including the squirrels we’re about to run into headfirst.

So, can I ask you something?

Are you running from something at the moment? And if so — from what?

I wonder if, like Hagar, you could answer that first question easily. I’m running from this relationship. This season. This feeling. This fear. This version of myself I can’t quite face. The from is clear.

But what about the second question? Where are you actually going? What — or who — are you running towards?

Because ‘away’ is not a destination.

But there is somewhere to run to. Someone, actually. Jesus — the one who sat by a well with a woman who had spent her whole life running from one thing to the next, looking for something that would finally satisfy — told her: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”(John 4:13-14, NIV). He wasn’t just talking about the well. He was talking about Himself. He is the water. He is the destination. He is the answer to the second question Hagar couldn’t answer — the to that finally makes sense of all the running.

And friend, He is not standing at a distance waiting to see if you find your way to Him. He is already in the wilderness with you, already by the well, already asking the question — not to expose you, but to turn you around. To bring you home. To give you the one thing that actually satisfies.

You don’t need to keep running. So maybe — just maybe — it’s worth slowing down for a second. Look around. There might be a well you’ve been running straight past. There might also be a squirrel.

Either way, you probably don’t want to miss it.

Where have you come from — and where are you actually going? Which of those two questions is harder to answer right now?

Let’s pray:

Lord, You are the God who sees — who meets us regardless of whether we've got it together, and always right in the middle of our wild running. Forgive us for the times we flee without thinking where we’re headed. For the times we’ve been so focused on escape that we missed what You’d placed right in front of us. Slow us down. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Ask us the hard questions and give us courage to actually respond. Thank You that You are not just the God who interrupts our running — You are the one worth running to. You are the water we need. Meet us here. In Jesus’ name, amen.

May the God who met Hagar in the wilderness meet you in yours today — and may you find Jesus ready and waiting, right where you are, right in front of you.

Cheering you on,

Em 💛

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