So the sermon was on Jonah….

Over the 4^th of July weekend Brad and I went out to NJ to visit his family.  Things have been kind of rocky.  Not in a drastic way, just in a we are looking out for ourselves selfish way.  Therefore, nothing ever “goes right”.  I offered up prayers to God these past few months in a repetitive way in a “God, please help me, please help us our  marriage, make it better” To be honest sometimes I just expect Him to go and wave a magic wand and make it all “alright” instead of sending trails and tribulations along the way to refine us.   Once again, to be honest my faith has never felt so weak and dry before. The other day I was crying and telling Brad how upset I was that I didn’t get to spend time with him in a while.  He sat there asking me to get up and I refused being so stubborn, I just laid there and soaked in my own misery, and he said “You are crying because you don’t spend time with me yet, right now I am asking you to spend time with me and your choosing to just stay here and cry.”How many times have I cried out to God asking Him to make my faith stronger, make things clearer, provide strength, the list goes on and on…and yet while expecting the magic wand thing to happen, it doesn't. How can I sit on idle hands and expect things to change?  


So getting back to the main story line, we were in NJ. We step into Sharptown Church and I grab a bulletin. I open it up and see the sermon title “Running from God” a series in Jonah. Wow. I knew and know that when it comes to my selfishness and my wanting to keep this life as my own, I am running from God. Constantly…constantly.  

Jonah 1:1-

 ¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

 ³ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.


Pastor Doug tied Jonah running away from God in so personally that it was almost uncomfortable to sit in my seat.  He noted that God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah said, no. Infact he went to the exact opposite of Nineveh and went to Tarshish.  He challenged us asking us what our “boat” was that we run to instead of running toward where God wants us to go.  I know God constantly tells me to look outside of my self and be more concerned about others, to actually give my whole heart and soul to Him and to give myself more to Brad instead of being so wrapped up in my self.  But I keep saying, No. No God, I’d rather just stay right here, infact I’d rather be so wrapped up in myself that I will forget about other peoples needs.  I will focus on all the little “problems” surrounding me.  There are later times in my life where I can look back and see that I am a Jonah, when I felt the Holy Spirit moving me to work with teen girls, I said no.  No God, I don’t even know what to say to them.  It is too awkward and too time consuming.  Or the youth group, God says preach the Gospel to these kids, work with them as unto me.  These are my children.  Care for them.  And yet, here I am again saying, God…it’s too hard, they don’t listen.  They don’t even want to be here, why should I?  


The sad part is, when we try and run from what God wants us to do, things only get worse.  There is no peace, things start going down hill, depression kicks in, life seems pointless.  Jonah for example, was in a boat to escape, the waves started to get crazy and they cast a lot to see which one of their “gods” were mad at them.  The lot landed on Jonah and he simply said, throw me overboard…

Jonah 1:10-12

¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
 ¹¹ The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
 ¹² “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”


At first they tried to keep him in the boat to spare his life, but eventually, as the sea just kept getting rougher, they threw him over.  Jonah then found himself in the belly of a fish. Things just kept going down hill.  Pastor Doug put it like this
When we decide to run away from what God wants us, we just keep going down, Jonah went down into a boat, down into the sea, down into the belly of a fish. We just keep going further down, down, and down.




The point in me explaining all of this, although I am not sure if I kept on track or if I kept on wandering, is that we can all be like Jonah.  But like I said earlier, it is a sermon SERIES, and just as God brought Jonah out of the belly of fish and into where he wanted Him to go, after Jonahs repenting heart in the belly of the fish, and Jonah went to Nineveh.  He wasn’t  extremely  happy about it, but he did go, and at the end of the chapter we see God put Jonah in his place, and I believe that God changed Jonah’s heart for His people that day. 
I can’t end this post telling you that I had a huge revelation Sunday and that everything is fixed, but I can tell you that steps are being made.  I don’t want to sit on idle hands and disobey God.  And I certainly don’t want to end up in the belly of a fish!