Scripture: Jonah 1.
There will come a day when the Lord lays something on
your heart that is completely against everything you know and believe. He may
want you to end a relationship that is going to damage your life. He may want
you to confess to a crime that happened years ago. He may want to change your
direction to a destination not to your liking.
Whatever it may be your response is to run the other way.
Go on holiday.
Put distance between you and the situation. While you are
escaping your whole world starts to fall apart as the Lord makes running very
difficult. Just as He did for Jonah. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh and give
them warning about the consequences of their many sins.
Jonah loathed the Ninevites much as most of us feel about
the Taliban, or Al Qaeda or Assad of Syria. And we would no doubt react just
like Jonah did. Run, hide, escape, be somewhere else. Anything but do God's
will.
Others can get caught up in your panic and be hurt by it.
To spare them you sacrifice yourself. Let me die you say. Even death was preferable to Jonah than
helping that evil city.
You may agree with Jonah and desire death over obedience
and at the very last moment God spares your life and the scary thing you were
fleeing from becomes quite acceptable, in the end turns out to be the best
thing that ever happenedto you.
Jonah had to be thrown overboard, swallowed by a whale,
bleached white by its gastric juices and then spat out on the beach near the
city of Nineveh! He must have asked a shocked fisherman "Where am I?"
And realised that God means business with Nineveh and resigned himself to do
what was commanded.
God knows best and can see the future. He had that big
fish ready and waiting to deliver Jonah to the place He wanted him to be. The
impact on Nineveh was heightened by how Jonah looked and how God engineered his
arrival on their shores. Anyway his words had the desired effect and they
repented by fasting in sackcloth and ashes for three days.
Jonah developed a death wish.
No matter how evil or wrong people are, God loves them
and Jesus died for them. He will go to extremes to reach the lost and fallen as
He did for Karen Ann (See Miracle of Karen Ann 1 and 2 on our blog).
So when the Lord God gives you a difficult task to do,
pause and ponder before you run. There are still plenty of whales in the sea
ready to do their Creator's bidding.
Prayer: Almighty God nothing ever surprises You. You know
us so well and Your plans for us are always for our good. Help us to submit to
Your plans peacefully so that You may be glorified in us. Amen.