Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

Today I want to explore the emotions we go through when we are placed in difficult situations. Whilst Jonah was going about his daily life we heard nothing of him nor did we know that he was called of God. So why is his short story placed in the canon of the bible? It would appear that it is there to teach us some very important lessons.

Firstly we are not to be defined by our feelings and sometimes we have to experience the feelings of total abandonment for our faith level to rise above the ordinary.  Secondly because God is outside of time, however long it takes for the penny to drop, he will wait for us. Because God is patient, longsuffering and gracious, we can sometime take liberties. For Jonah this meant going completely against what he was commanded to do. Although we know that our God is all knowing and all seeing we still try to act smart and pretend that we don’t know what time of day it is. Jonah was instructed to ‘go at once to Nineveh and warn the people.’  He knew that Yahweh is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding is steadfast love (Psalm 145:8), so he felt that he had time on his hands. He may have been anxious about the whole situation and in his anxiety felt that he could not deliver the message of destruction to ignorant people. Perhaps mingled with this anxiety was fear, trepidation and grave sadness that the whole inhabitants of Nineveh would be destroyed. His actions are very typical of an un-regenerated person. His emotions were leading him and as a consequence his faith went out of the window along with his knowledge of the greatness of Yahweh. When we are being led by how we feel, we seldom make the right decisions or chose the right path. Emotions have no intelligence and as such will always allow us to make the wrong decisions.

Our feelings are subject to our environment, so if the weather is nice and sun is shining, we tend to be upbeat. Whereas if the sky is overcast and it is raining, we typically feel a bit down in the dumps.

Jonah’s wake-up call was him dying to his selfishness. Spending three days and nights in the belly of a fish allowed him time to reflect and to refocus on who he really was. Perhaps all of us need some time away from our familiar surroundings to get in touch with out true selves so that we can reconnect with the all-knowing all-seeing all-powerful God who called and equipped us to relay his message of hope to our dying generation. What would you do? How do you react when you hear the call?  It is easy to feel anxious, angry, sad, elated or non-plus but allow you faith in the one who is above all our emotions to rise and you will see the great things that he will do.

Read Proverbs 21 and allow the Lord to weigh your heart.