{"id":660,"date":"2026-08-30T09:09:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/?p=660"},"modified":"2026-08-30T09:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:09:24","slug":"he-ran-up-he-walked-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/2026\/08\/30\/he-ran-up-he-walked-away\/","title":{"rendered":"He Ran Up. He Walked Away."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- POST TITLE: He Ran Up. He Walked Away. -->\n<style>@import url('https:\/\/fonts.googleapis.com\/css2?family=Oswald:wght@400;500;700&family=Lora:ital,wght@0,400;0,500;1,400&display=swap');\n.gbi{--bg:#DCD6CB;--darkest:#23211D;--mid:#6B5B4A;--heading:#483525;--cool:#545552;--light:#EBE8E4;--surface-verse:#E3DDD2;--surface-deep:#D3CDC2;font-family:'Lora',Georgia,serif;color:var(--darkest);background:var(--bg);max-width:720px;margin:2em auto;padding:2.5em 2em;line-height:1.7;font-size:1.05em}\n.gbi .eyebrow{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.85em;letter-spacing:.18em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--mid);font-weight:500;margin:0 0 .4em}\n.gbi h2{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.3em;letter-spacing:.08em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--mid);margin:2em 0 .7em;border-bottom:1px solid var(--heading);padding-bottom:.3em}\n.gbi .verse{font-family:'Lora',Georgia,serif;font-style:italic;font-size:1.08em;line-height:1.6;letter-spacing:normal;background:var(--surface-verse);border-left:4px solid var(--heading);padding:1.1em 1.4em;margin:1.4em 0;color:var(--darkest)}\n.gbi .verse-cite{display:block;font-style:normal;font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.82em;letter-spacing:.1em;color:var(--mid);margin-top:.6em;text-transform:uppercase}\n.gbi .divider{border:none;border-top:1px solid var(--heading);margin:2em auto;width:80px}\n.gbi p{margin:0 0 1.1em}\n.gbi .pull{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.15em;letter-spacing:.04em;color:var(--darkest);border-top:1px solid var(--heading);border-bottom:1px solid var(--heading);padding:1em 0;margin:1.6em 0;text-align:center;line-height:1.4}\n.gbi .gbi-deep{background:var(--surface-deep);border-left:4px solid var(--cool);padding:1.1em 1.4em;margin:1.4em 0}\n@media (max-width:600px){.gbi{padding:1.6em 1.2em}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"gbi\">\n<p class=\"eyebrow\">Go Back In &middot; Week 3 &middot; Sunday<\/p>\n<p>There is a man in the tenth chapter of Mark who does something no one else in the Gospels does. He runs to Jesus. And then he leaves.<\/p>\n<h2>He came in a hurry<\/h2>\n<p>Running and kneeling in public, in front of a crowd, to ask a religious question &mdash; that is not a cautious man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up and knelt before Him. &ldquo;Good Teacher,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;what must I do to inherit eternal life?&rdquo;<span class=\"verse-cite\">Mark 10:17 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He is earnest. He wants this. Whatever we are about to watch him do, we cannot say he did not care.<\/p>\n<h2>One sentence<\/h2>\n<p>Before Jesus says anything hard, Mark makes a point of telling us what Jesus does first.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, &ldquo;There is one thing you lack: Go, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.&rdquo;<span class=\"verse-cite\">Mark 10:21 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Notice the invitation at the end. <em>Then come, follow Me.<\/em> The same words He said to fishermen who dropped their nets on the spot. It is a real door, held open, by a Man who is looking at him with love.<\/p>\n<h2>And he walked out<\/h2>\n<p class=\"verse\">But the man was saddened by these words and went away in sorrow, because he had great wealth.<span class=\"verse-cite\">Mark 10:22 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That is the whole tragedy in one line. He was invited in. He walked out. And Mark, who tells us how nearly everyone else&#8217;s story ends, tells us nothing more about him. The passage does not narrate him coming back.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever he was holding, he could not set it down long enough to walk through the door he had run to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pull\">He did not lack faith. He lacked the willingness to be without the thing that made him feel safe.<\/p>\n<h2>The child right before him<\/h2>\n<p>Read the four verses immediately before this, because Mark set them there on purpose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">Truly I tell you, anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.&rdquo;<span class=\"verse-cite\">Mark 10:15 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A child owns nothing, secures nothing, has no reserve and no record and no reputation to protect. A child just comes. And then, one paragraph later, a grown man with much to protect runs up and cannot. Mark put the child and the man in the same doorway on purpose.<\/p>\n<h2>The oldest trade<\/h2>\n<p>Two chapters earlier, Jesus had already named the exchange the man is about to make.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?<span class=\"verse-cite\">Mark 8:36 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The man in chapter 10 is that question with a face. He is not evil. He is comfortable &mdash; and he trades a door Jesus is holding open for the comfort of keeping what he already had.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gbi-deep\">\n<p>The disciples watch this and ask the only honest question left: then who can be saved? Jesus does not soften it. &ldquo;With man this is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God&rdquo; (Mark 10:27). Hold on to that. The letting-go is not something we manufacture by wanting it more. It is something God does in a person who finally stops guarding the exit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Why this week<\/h2>\n<p>I run three businesses. I know the feeling of the exit &mdash; the quiet reassurance that if this goes wrong, I can handle it, I have a way out, I will be fine. That reassurance is not sin. It is comfort. And comfort is exactly the thing that can walk a man out of a room God put him in.<\/p>\n<p>This week is five rooms and five securities. Money. A record. A reputation. The certainty that you can do it yourself. And on Friday, the one grip that will not come loose no matter how hard you pull, and what happens then.<\/p>\n<p>The man in Mark ran to the right place and left holding the wrong thing. The rest of the week is about staying. And Saturday is a room I did not walk out of, and what it cost me to stay in it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Go Back In &middot; Week 3 &middot; Sunday There is a man in the tenth chapter of Mark who does something no one else in the Gospels does. He runs to Jesus. And then he leaves. He came in a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-go-back-in"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SU_20260830_BLOG.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}