Tuesday 27 May 2014

May 27: Jonah 2:1-10

Key Verse: Jonah 2:9
But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

Devotion:
This is one of those stories that we love to hear as children because Jonah lived inside a whale, or at least that is how I remembered it as a child. It is not until we get to read the story for ourselves that we get to see what happened and why God allowed things to go as far as they did. But one thing that we can always remember is that God was in control and that is it!

God prepared the big fish before Jonah had had time to run away; fish do not grow into monsters overnight, it was waiting patiently for the right time. When Jonah did get thrown overboard he came to inside the belly of the fish; quite how that is possible we will not get to hear until we get to meet him face to face. Quite how God has managed to get things to happen in my life are beyond me too, but I know it is God because without God those moments would not have been possible. I like the simile of a hurricane coming along and building a jumbo jet in a scrap yard because I know what it takes to build an aeroplane – it’s what I learned in university.

God’s knowledge goes far beyond what man can and does understand and yet we have libraries of information written by scientists proclaiming all of what man has done, and yet we only have one collection of books proclaiming what God has done. But that does not stop God from continuing to work in our lives and continuing to show us the same grace that He showed Jonah. When we are ready to turn away from our sin and repent, just as Jonah had done, then God is ready and waiting to turn our lives around and to use whatever miracle He deems necessary to make that U-turn for us.

I cannot imagine how difficult it is to give up on drugs or cigarettes or anything like that because I have always ended up being violently ill when trying anything; I guess God knows I am not strong enough to give up so He will not let me start! But I do know what it is like to turn away from sin, and even to give in to it, because I have been there as well. But with God’s grace, I was forgiven. With God’s strength I was able to turn around. With God’s guidance, I can continue walking roughly in the right direction.

Points to Ponder:
Do you walk off where you want?

Will you listen to God’s instruction?