Are We like Jonah

ARE WE LIKE JONAH?

MANY TIMES IN OUR LIVE S WE SIT WAY TO MUCH IN OUR COMFORT ZONES IN FURNITURE THAT BIG ENOUGH TO GET LOST IN THEM BEING SO STUFFED WITH TONS OF PILLOWS THAT WE ALL AROUND SURROUND OURSELVES IN BLOCKING OUT ALL THE NOISES THAT'S IN ONE'S LIFE DO WE REALLY MAKE TIME FOR FINDING OUT ONE'S REASON'S IN WHY WE DO IT? IS IT ACTUALLY THE NOISE WE DON'T LIKE OR ONESLEF RUNNING AWAY FROM IT ALL? DO YOU TRULY KNOW WHY THAT YOU YOURSELF ? WHERE IS YOUR PRAYER LIFE?
Have we actually made any kinds of a list one self to check one's motives out to see just where self is and why we have come to feel this way and what needs to be done about it,the main question is this: have you prayed about it all and have a little talk with jesus in what's really going on in one's life? What's the real reason that we often feel like running out of all of that noise or is something going on in your present circumstances that you find self needs just trying tokeep all noise out of one's own life or I like to keep running from?what keeps you very reluctant to pray? Ask God to bring healing to those past wounds, to be cleaned up all of those rooms that happens to that very reasons in most intentions that we concider that which does have morsels of huge amounts of clutter your own heart ? Have we made a special place so we can make all preparations for some regular prayer time each and every day when we find self being frenzied, shaken , bendt low simply because we didn't make the time to pray with the Lord.
In this book we find a prayer that often times enough we have to come out of those awful places in one's mind and heart to get down one's own truths to then see that wounderful light that shines down upon us . It's simpleness of it's value that we can't often times see it till we have seen it for what that worth has come to have it "s meaning. Int the book of Jonah that our Lord comminicating with Jonah. But he's very reluctant to respond - - he is redy to disobey. He's plugging his hears, turning up radio's and literaly shutting him out. Not even paying attention to what the Lord is trying to tell him, just flat out snubbing him, he dons his Nikes and board a boat destined for a far away distant land, far away from Nineveh, the city the Lord commanded him to preach repentence to. So what does the Lord do? He send a very violent storm after the ship which Jonah resides on with salior's, captians and the rest of it's crews. They with Jonah is ready to set sai;s out on the open seas. The first prayer encounter is the salior's. Once they had determined Jonah's being very disobedience had caused the storm that threatened thier very lives, they were very reluctant to follow Jonah's advice to pitch him overboard. Let's take a minute to read what the scriptures have to say about it. (Jonah 1:4-13)

4But as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the LORD flung a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to send them to the bottom. 5Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. And all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. 6So the captain went down after him. "How can you sleep at a time like this?" he shouted. "Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will have mercy on us and spare our lives."

7Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, Jonah lost the toss. 8"What have you done to bring this awful storm down on us?" they demanded. "Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?"

9And Jonah answered, "I am a Hebrew, and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." 10Then he told them that he was running away from the LORD.

The sailors were terrified when they heard this. "Oh, why did you do it?" they groaned. 11And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, "What should we do to you to stop this storm?"

12"Throw me into the sea," Jonah said, "and it will become calm again. For I know that this terrible storm is all my fault."

13Instead, the sailors tried even harder to row the boat ashore. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn't make it.

Do You see those reasons why the sailor's were very reluctant to turn to God? ( 1) The Salior's: [Looked for solutions from comfortable and known sources].(2.)Threw cargo over board[Tried to solve the problem directly]. (3.) asked Jonah to pray[ Asked someone else to pray for them]. (4.) [cast lots:[simply they looked for thier god's which were "magical"source that they consulted in helping them to have it stopped]. (5.) they rowed desperately [ ran away as best as they could at that moment]. I know that many times in my own life that I have done many of those things and have suffered from acting just like Jonah and often times the sailor's too. It just varied in what stage I was at in the Lord then after seeing my own result I knew I had to change to come closer in the Lord . Just as they I've had to not be reluctant and to keep my own heart opened , repent, then to have faith in the Lord in having me move to another level in Him. And it first it seemed to be very uncomfortable in learning to speak to him in my own prayer time with the Lord, till one day I just had a crisis and was crying unto Him and I just spoke to Jesus just like I'm sharing with you today and afterwords I wiped my tears away and just kept on speaking to him in knowing that it was a dire situation for us and at the time it was all I knew to do. I had forgotton that I needed to repent and to have faith in the Lord in respecting God to save us because our God is so very gracious to everyone. At first I never wanted to really admit that I, myself had been wrong in many of the aspects of my life and Ihad to be humbled in order to to look to the lord in being obedient in one's own omissions in my own behavior in being wrong in all actions, thoughts, then to turn it around in thanking him and praising him for what he would do by the promises in his word, because I had them in the back of the bible writen down and know that he would provide the way for me to see it through in what he had promised in the scriptures. As I remember it wasn't an overnight express to get to those answers! It was learning about prayer as I had heard it in sermons on sunday morning's and talking about it in the chaple about it to different members of the church, then to go home and apply it my self and I didn't get it right away but as I learned it slowly over time. I didn't have that personal relationship with theLord at first but the more I cried and had the scriptures in front of me during my prayer time the more closer that I have gotton the more I felt at ease in God. But here were time I felt like he was away and didn't hear me. And then other times it was like I had been lifted up to places that only I could see within the spirit of my being and just cried my eyes out in pleading in the lord about those personal things, other places far away. Let's look again at Jonah: (Jonah 3:4-10)

4On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: "Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!" 5The people of Nineveh believed God's message, and from the greatest to the least, they decided to go without food and wear sackcloth to show their sorrow.

6When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in sackcloth and sat on a heap of ashes. 7Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: "No one, not even the animals, may eat or drink anything at all. 8Everyone is required to wear sackcloth and pray earnestly to God. Everyone must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. 9Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will have pity on us and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us."

10When God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he had mercy on them and didn't carry out the destruction he had threatened.

God employs Jonah again in his service. His making use of us is an evidence of his being at peace with us. Jonah was not disobedient, as he had been. He neither endeavoured to avoid hearing the command, nor declined to obey it. See here the nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty. Also, the benefit of affliction; it brings those back to their place who had deserted it. See the power of Divine grace, for affliction of itself would

rather drive men from God, than draw them to him. God's servants must go where he sends them, come when he calls them, and do what he bids them; we must do whatever the word of the Lord commands. Jonah faithfully and boldly delivered his errand. Whether Jonah said more, to show the anger of God against them, or whether he only repeated these words again and again, is not certain, but this was the purport of his message. Forty days is a long time for a righteous God to delay judgments, yet it is

but a little time for an unrighteous people to repent and reform in. And should it not awaken us to get ready for death, to consider that we cannot be so sure that we shall live forty days, as Nineveh then was that it should stand forty days? We should be alarmed if we were sure not to live a month, yet we are careless though we are not sure to live a day.

The Bottom Line : Dispite the foreign idea of praying to God, the Ninevites showed responsibility and had a heart -- which is in contrats to Jonah's. He didn't seem to notice just what the town was doing before him , he very quickley forgot that he himself was rebellious ( just to say the least that he had runnaway), and he in turn needed forgivness and mercy. dispite his extreme situation of being caught in the major storm earlier, and had almost drowning and being swolled up by a fish, and being belched up on a beach. Don't you think he forgot something already ? Jezzze ! What happened to compassion on the sinners? He had in No way thought about them he seemed very untouched by the Ninevites full repentence that they were having at those moments. In the rest of the chapter , God tries to show Jonah that , while God had plenty of reason to be angry with both Jonah and the Ninevites, Jonah had more cause to thankful than angry. Jonah shows us that, when our hearts we harbor rebellion, anger, prejudice, pride, self- sufficency, or mercilessness, we will be reluctant to come to God and very unthankful for any mercy God shows to others. The salior's shows us that rather praying, we often turn to humans for help, try to rearrange life problems, ask others to pray for us, hope the problem will dissappear, or try to run away from it should it persisit in one's own life. catcmo2006