Day 184 - My Way or The High(er) Way

📖Daily Reading

 Jonah

🎥 Video  

Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

📝 Reflection 

  Jonah 4: 1-3

  This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”

 

We all know how Jonah was swallowed by a whale 🐳 or some sort of big fish. He was swallowed by a whale because he was thrown overboard by his shipmates in a big storm. He was thrown overboard because they all agreed that God was causing the storm because Jonah had decided to go his own way instead of what God had instructed him to do. God instructed him to go prophesy to the city of Nineveh and warn the people that the city would be destroyed. 

Jonah did not want to do this, and as it reflects in the verse above, he knew that God might not follow through on his threat because he hopes that people will heed the warnings and repent and change their ways. Jonah clearly didn’t agree with God, it seems he wanted the city of Nineveh to be destroyed. I think he also didn’t want to be God’s fool. I looked up the word fool and it’s root word means to bellow or be a windbag. As I read this I am picking up on the vibe that he also didn’t want to be made a fool of in front of people. And not just any people but his enemies. 

I can really relate to Jonah. There have been many times, when I felt a calling or a whisper to go in a certain direction and I hightailed it in the opposite direction, or doubled down on what I was doing vs changing. Can you relate?  Interestingly God was still able to use Jonah’s way for a higher purpose. On the ship in the storm the other men on the ship asked him who he was, where he was from and what his occupation was. Jonah told them, I am Hebrew and I worship the Lord God of heaven. When he was thrown overboard and the storm stopped, they all vowed to serve God. 

When God and Jonah were ‘talking’ and Jonah was so set on vengeance against the people of Nineveh. God reminded him that there were 120,000 souls who were in spiritual darkness and didn’t know their right hand from their left hand in Nineveh. Wasn’t it worth being made a fool of to save such a great city? He used a plant and a worm to demonstrate and remind Jonah of his sovereignty and that his ways are higher and that Jonah was limited in his humanness of seeing the bigger picture and that he need to just trust and obey and give up having ‘his’ way. 

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

Can you recall a time in your life when you knew you were supposed to do something and you went your own way instead? Can you see how God still uses even our 'mistakes' to get us and others where we need to go? 

📖Tomorrows Reading

Micah 

Coaching Opportunity

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