The Courage to Run Away

It takes many kinds of courage to live through life — the courage to face facts, to solve problems; the courage to accept assignments, to stay with what we have started, the courage to follow through; the courage to preserve principles, and sometimes to fight for them. And there are times, paradoxically, that call for another kind of courage — even the courage to run away. It is this kind of courage that we would talk of for a moment or two, first recalling an example of it in the decision that saved Joseph in Egypt when Potiphar’s wife enticed and tempted him —”But he refused and said unto his master’s wife… how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? …and he fled, and got him out.”¹ And then the record reads that “the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour”¹ —because he had the strength, the courage, to resist and evil invitation, even the courage to “flee, and get out.” Some lightness of humor has sometimes been suggested in walking back from rides rather than yielding to improper proposals. But the courage to walk out away from moral compromise is a high kind of courage; the courage to remain virtuous, to preserve chastity; the courage to sever and undesirable association. There are many enticements in life, many temptations — to compromise principles, to come with the crowd, to follow false fashions, to play for popular approval. And while it is generally good to be as pleasant with people as possible, it is never good to be agreeable to enter into any act of evil. There is an old saying that misery likes company. And evil does also — and it doesn’t easily let loose. And it sometimes takes a special kind of courage on the part of young people to turn from ridicule, from the pointing of fingers, from the accusation of being afraid to take a dare — to do what shouldn’t be done. Yes, life requires many kinds of courage — the courage to turn back, to swallow pride, to admit a mistake, to repent, to forgive, to be reconciled, to leave bad habits behind. Courage is required sometimes to retreat, and sometimes to stay and stand. But at that precarious moment when the odds of evil are uppermost, we may most need the courage to walk out, to close the door, to leave the evil environment, even as did a young man in ancient Egypt, who “fled, and got him out.”