Or…did he?
Yeah, I’m a lot like Jonah. Most of the stuff God requests of me is pretty easy. Well maybe not most, but it’s doable. If ya know what I mean?
There are a few things He wants me to do that are just plain hard. Then there are one or two things that I drag my feet about, complain, whine, cry, complain some more…and on and on it goes. It takes me forever to do them. Often times, I end up with a sick stomach because God is pointing one direction and my flesh is warring against me, pointing in the opposite direction. Ugh. When shall I learn?
It comes down to one thing, whom are we going to obey? Our flesh? Someone else? Or God?
Now, when we put it that way, it seems like the obvious choice is, well…obvious. But, and it’s a big BUT, when we are in the midst of justifying why we don’t want to, or why we can’t, we can come up with some pretty good arguments for traveling in the opposite direction.
Our excuses run the gamut. We don’t want to offend people. We’re scared of what they’re going to do to us. What happens if we heard wrong? What if we mess up? Someone else more qualified will do it. Someone who has better speaking skills will tackle it. Someone with more authority will do a better job. Poor me, I’m just a carpenter’s son. Oh wait a minute…He didn’t say that did he? Aren’t you glad he didn’t?
If we want to avoid ending up in the belly of big fish, we need to stop running and start obeying.
I Samuel 15:22 reads …to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams.
Simply put, He wants us to trust him. He wants us to recognize that we are lowly humans and He is this great big awesome God that created the world. Once we realize our place, once we accept our position, we’ll wonder why we ever questioned him in the first place. Like, I know better than God? Really? Talk about pride! That is thinking mighty highly of oneself!
