Stay Present: Facing What's Real Instead of Fleeing It
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” — Mark 10:45 (ESV)
Picture yourself walking the road to Jerusalem with Jesus. He's just told you plainly what's coming: He'll be mocked, beaten, spit on, and killed. Mark even captures the group's mood — “they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid” (Mark 10:32, ESV). Real fear, hanging in the air. And what do two of His closest friends do with that fear? James and John pull Him aside and ask for the best seats in His coming kingdom — one at His right, the other at His left.
It's easy to read that and shake your head at the selfishness. Here's Jesus, about to give His life for them, and they're angling for status. And that's fair — it is stunningly self-absorbed. But if we stop there, we miss what's really going on underneath.
Look at the timing. The fear was already in the air. Jesus had told them three separate times that He was going to die, and it terrified them — none of it fit the earthly kingdom they were expecting. So what do you do with a reality that scares you and won't fit? You escape the present. James and John fled into the future — daydreaming about thrones and glory — because that imagined future was much easier to sit in than the terrifying now. Their grab for position wasn't only selfishness. It was fear, wearing a disguise.
And look at what it cost them. Jesus was walking toward the cross, needing His closest friends beside Him — and they weren't really there. Their feet were on the road, but their minds were off in a future that hadn't come, arranging their own glory. They missed it: the chance to simply be present with their Lord in His pain, to comfort Him in the hardest hour of His life. That's what fleeing the present always steals — it pulls you out of the one moment where God, and the people who need you, actually are.
We all have our disguises. When a hard reality shows up — a diagnosis, a conflict, a fear we can't shake — most of us do one of three things instead of facing it. Some of us deny it — bury ourselves in busyness, insist we're fine, and hope it just goes away. Some of us try to control it — white-knuckle every detail so we never have to feel the fear underneath. And some of us future-cast — we leave the painful present and live in another moment: a brighter one down the road, or a feared one we've already scripted, reacting to a version of events that's only happening in our heads. Different disguises, same move: anything to not be here, now, with what's real.
Now look back at Jesus on that road. He did the opposite. He didn't deny what was coming, didn't scramble to control it, and didn't escape into a rosier future. He walked straight toward the hardest reality imaginable, staying present the whole way, because He came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, ESV). He could stay present because He was anchored in His Father. And that's the secret for us, too. The courage to face what's real instead of fleeing it doesn't come from gritting our teeth. It's the difference Paul draws in Romans 8:5 — between a mind set “on the things of the flesh” and a mind set “on the things of the Spirit” (ESV). Fleeing the present — in any of its forms — is a mind set on the flesh, chasing what isn't here; staying present with God is a mind set on Him.
So the next time fear tempts you to run — to deny, to control, to race ahead — try the harder, holier thing: stay. Stay in the room. Bring the real thing, and your real fear, to your real Father. The peace you keep chasing somewhere else — in a managed outcome, a buried reality, an imagined future — is found right here, with Him, in the present. And so is the person right in front of you who needs you to simply be there.
Big Idea
When a hard reality scares us, we flee — into denial, control, or future-casting — rather than face it. But the peace we're chasing isn't in some other moment; it's found by staying in this one — with the Father.
Questions to Ponder
When something hard or frightening shows up, which way do you tend to run — denial, control, or racing ahead into a future you've already scripted? Think of a recent time your fear pulled you out of the present — what did that flight cost you, and what were you really afraid of beneath it? And be honest: is there a reality you're working hard not to face right now? What would it look like to stay present with the Lord instead?
Application
With your journal in hand, name the reality you've been avoiding — the conversation, the diagnosis, the fear, the thing you keep managing or scripting instead of facing. Then catch your move: do you deny it, control it, or future-cast around it? Bring the real thing to God, in the present tense — not the imagined version, the actual one. Ask Him for the one thing that makes staying possible — a deeper sense of His nearness. Then take the present-tense step you've been dodging: the honest conversation, the phone call, the thing you know is yours to do. Faith isn't fleeing to a better moment. It's meeting God in this one.
Before the Lord — a daily devotional by Blake S. Crawford. Read more and subscribe free at blakescrawford.com/before-the-lord.