When your cruising along in life, thinking all is well, sometimes you come to a road block. What happens when you face that road block? Do you turn around and go back the way you came? Do you follow the detour or do you plow through the road block with your car?
I know I have mentioned that Jonah is one of my favorite characters of the bible, but my church is doing a series on him and I was struck by the sermon this morning, so I have to share...
If you've been following me for a while, you know that I have come to a lot of road blocks over the past 16 months. Some were good and others were not. The things that I have heard, the events that I have witnessed, the stuff that I have endured have been very tough on my family and myself, but He always provides.
If you know the story of Jonah, you know that Jonah got an instruction to go to Nineveh and spread His word. Jonah didn't want to go because he was afraid of the Assyrians, and righteously so since the Assyrians had killed his people not so long ago, and Jonah just didn't feel like the Assyrians were worthy of His love, so he ran to the far corner of the world, thinking that he could hide from Him.
Well we all know the rest of the story...you can't hide from Him and even though Jonah tried to sleep through the storm, he got caught. So Jonah is tossed into the water and as he is sinking deeper and deeper, and He rescues him. He provided the fish/whale to save Jonah from dieing. The fish wasn't a punishment, it was salvation.
How many of us think that the fish that He provides is punishment and not saving grace? As I look back I can certainly see where I have viewed things that way. I remember specifically one situation where I was told something that would have saved me much heartache and instead of seeing it as helpful, I saw it as hopelessness and got angry. And boy was I mad and mad for quite a while. I talked a little about what that anger did to me in this post.
In the video series that goes along with the sermon series, the woman on the video used an example of someone holding a glass of water and them being shaken and of course water came out of the glass. Her point was that when adversity comes it's what we are made of that bubbles out and after thinking back to this situation I am not proud of who I was back during that time. Fortunately He never gave up on me and I did eventually I came around. There's that fish again.
And now I am at a moment in time where I am having to look very hard at my circumstances to find that fish again. Fish are easily mistaken for other things, but I am finding my fish in the smallest of places. A word from a friend, a quote from a book or a scripture verse from the Bible. I wish I could say I am pleased with all of the fish that I am getting but as a broken human, I am still waiting for the whale .
Redemption is hard to wait on, we don't have the patience to wait on Him. We want what we want and we want it now. I have a vision of my redemption and I want to believe that this image is His and the image is what I need to hold onto while I wait for His redemption but I keep asking for the vision to be taken away because I don't want to be disappointed, but the vision keeps coming back. Even after fervent prayer, the vision still appears.
Unlike Jonah, I didn't need to be swallowed before I returned to prayer. As you have read, I am a big believer in prayer. I have gotten lax at times, but my prayer life has really grown over the last 2 years. I've been working very hard to really surrender completely, but again as a broken human, I often try to take matters into my own hands and of course I make things worse. So that is my constant prayer, "Don't let me try to fix what is Yours to fix." Let me say that again..."Don't let me try to fix what is Yours to fix."
The gift of the fish speaks to His loving kindness and grace. Jonah ran from Him, he sinned but He still came after Jonah and loved him enough to save him from drowning. We've all sinned and fallen short, but He always sends the fish to rescue us. Sometimes the rescue is hard and long, but rescue always comes. Sometimes the rescue is not what we expected, but rescue always comes.
Are you looking beyond your circumstances for your fish?
One of the things that struck me about the sermon was not only that the fish came as Jonah's salvation but that the time spent was for God's perfect work to be completed. The "time in between".... The blessing is yet to come. And this makes me think of the line in a song we have sung so many times..."and joy comes in the morning". So until then, let's pray unceasingly!
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