Destination: the Wilderness... and what happened next.

One of my earlier posts looked at Jonah. When he decided to run from God, he went overboard. I think we could safely say that his fish belly destination is the exception to the rule!  There are many other Bible characters who also tried to run from God, but instead of plunging into the waters of the deep with seaweed wrapping around their heads, their result was a geophysical opposite, an arid wilderness.

 
Hagar 
The story of Sarai, Hagar, and Ishmael is told in Genesis 16, and quite frankly, it is a mess. Sarai could not get pregnant, so she told her husband Abram to take her Egyptian servant, Hagar, and he could try to have a child through her. A pregnancy was the only part of the plan that worked. There were side effects that were not what Sarah had expected. Hagar, understandably to anyone with half a clue, began to despise Sarah. Abram turned slacker at this point and told his wife, Sarai, handle it however she saw fit. So Sarai treated her maidservant harshly, and a pregnant Hagar fled from her presence into the wilderness.
   "The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.  And he said, 'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, 'I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.'  The angel of the LORD said to her, 'Return to your mistress and submit to her.'" verses 7-9.
When we read ahead into the future, we find that eventually Abraham, as head of his household, did have to send Hagar and her son away.  Galatians 4:22-31 covers the New Testament perspective of the pattern lived out by Sarah and Hagar. Allegorically speaking, the women are two covenants:  one represents the flesh in which persons are externally led by what is happening around them,  and the other the spirit, in which persons are internally led as the Spirit of God bears witness with you spirit.

Moses
In Acts chapter seven, Stephen gives a historical summation of Israelite history before the Sanhedrin. In verse 23, at 40 years of age, Moses begins to discover the call of God on his life. Verses 25-28 show that his mission call wasn't working out like he expected, and he ran into some threatening disagreement.
  "At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian," verse 29.
This began the first of two times Moses would spend years in the wilderness, wandering in a permissive rather than a perfect will of God. This first time was his own chioce; he could not blame it on the disobedience of others. What can we say? That he learned some good survival skills during this time? That his experiences now would give him the compassion to intercede for the Israelites later? That may be true, but it does not mean that it was the only way or the best way.  It would be another 40 years before Moses had the encounter with the Lord that would get him back on track. 
    "Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush," verse 30. Moses gets curious in verse 31, God identified Himself in verse 32, told Moses to take off his sandals in verse 33, and then in verse 33 says, "Now come, I will send you back to Egypt."
Moses would go on to perform great miracles, bring great deliverance, and to receive the 'living oracles' when he returned to Mount Sinai with the newly liberated Israelites, but he still had problems. Stephen recounts: 
   "Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt," verse 39.
We cannot know the "what ifs" with any certainly, but it is possible that if Moses had not fled the first time, those years could have been spent changing to Israelites hearts to become more cooperative. Instead, Moses would live through the repetition of the wilderness-time pattern he once instigated for himself.  
 

Elijah
1 Kings 19 tells of when Elijah ran from Jezebel. His destination was a juniper tree a day's journey into the wilderness.   In some ways he was more despondent than Jonah, who also told God that he'd had enough and wanted to quit, except Elijah went even further and asked the Lord to take his life. We pick up at 1 Kings 19:5-7.

He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, "Arise, eat."
Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.
The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you."

 Obviously, God did not give Elijah the lay-down-and-die plan, although he equally obviously "felt" that was the thing to do. A high drama sequence follows with tornadic winds, shattered rocks and fire. But when Elijah finally hears God's voice, it is saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 
Elijah's excuse is part defensive and part woebegone. Then God says, "Return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus." God is sending him back to anoint a king for Israel and anoint a successor for himself. In a roundabout way, Elisha will get his desire, but first he must put affairs in order and anoint the new regime. God did not allow him to leave behind a mess for others. 

The Lesson
These stories which appear very different at first look share several strong parallels. 
1. They all felt pressured and fled.
2. They all ended up in the wilderness.
3. In each case, God sent them back to deal with the original issues before they got their resolution.
According to Gwen, mother of the runaway, and her whatever-pops-from-the-mouth analysis, these folks should have slammed the door to their personal history shut and moved on.  God did not.
KatieLyn does not have a wise mother who expects her to grow up and deal. She has one who coddles a codependency. And she like it like that.
But God does not leave things half-done.
At some point, KatieLyn will have to learn that. Next time will be harder for her.