Vomited upon the dry land..... And update on Conference in Asia

Jonah 2:10 (ESV)
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Now isn’t that an interesting lead-in for us as we open the weekly blog. Not necessarily a good word picture (ha,ha,ha) but something that might cause you to go “whattttt?”

Well, let’s back up a little and lay a quick foundation for our topic today.

Jonah is a prophet sent by the LORD to the city of Nineveh to preach a message of repentance. But, because of fear (Nineveh was an enemy of Israel) and pride, he didn’t really want God to save his enemies; Jonah ran from God to avoid his mission. As we all know he boards a ship headed to Tarshish across the sea in the opposite direction. He makes his way down into the lowest parts of the ship and goes fast asleep. Of course, all heck is breaking loose up above him and strong winds blowing so hard as to almost break up the ship. The crew is crying out to god (theirs) and throwing all the cargo overboard trying to save the ship. Finally, the captain goes below and says, “Wake up, sleeper, and call upon your God perhaps your God will consider us that we may not perish.” They then cast lots and it falls on Jonah. He finally comes clean and admits that all this craziness is his fault, he had already told them was running from the LORD. He instructs them to throw him over board as the way to save them and the ship. Immediately, the sea is calmed and the crew calls upon God and makes sacrifices to Him and takes vows. God was using Jonah to draw men to him even in his disobedience. God had also provided a Great Whale to swallow Jonah up for 3 days and 3 nights.
 
Now get this picture so far........Here is one of God’s children being disobedient to God’s direction and plans for his life. Hello, remind you of anyone you know sometimes, like maybe ourselves? Jonah Chapter 2 is the discourse of his time in the whale’s belly. Please take time to read it. But for space sake let me summarize....

Jonah has already admitted to the captain and crew, “yeah this is my fault because God said ‘go right’ and I wanted to go left instead,” if you will. Now he is in the belly of the whale crying out to God describing his situation because all of a sudden he is experiencing what it means to have that separation from God’s intimacy. He says (and I paraphrase), “I cried out to God in my affliction from the depths of hell, the bottom of the sea and He was listening.” Jonah hears and feels the movement of the billows and waves pass over the whale. He feels hopeless. I want you to picture this; the man is inside a whale’s stomach along with sea weed, and every kind of marine substance which that whale was picking up along the way. It was all being digested in stomach acids, etc. Blahaaa!! Not a good thing, as we would say. However, it was a God thing because it was exactly what was needed to bring Jonah to his senses. To recognize that he should never put his trust in anything but God alone.

 

Today my questions are these....

1. Are you running from God? Has He told you to go right and you decided to go left and trust your own ways?
2. Has going your own way put others in jeopardy? 
3. Has going your own way caused you to be encompassed with darkness, tangled in a web of disobedience, dimming the light of Christ in you? Stealing your very life away as you are surrounded by other dead things with no life to them.

It is time to call out to God! It is time to get honest, bare your soul, He already knows! He is just waiting to have you vomited out of the belly of your whale on to dry ground. Then you can pick up your feet and go right instead of left! Notice, once on dry ground, God gave the same direction to Jonah that he was given before. Only this time Jonah was obedient. 

 

My sweet friends, He has work for you and I to do. Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

 

If you are in the belly of a whale, pray for God to vomit you out on dry ground. And then be obedient to what he has called you to.

 

We have 31 missionary women sponsored for Southeast Asia with only 19 left to sponsor. God is soooooo working on their behalf. I love it!! Continue to pray for God to move on people’s hearts towards giving. Also, the team for Southeast Asia is solidified and we actually bought our tickets today! Thank you, Father, for the team you have in position to go minster to the frontline soldiers for such a time as this. I will be giving you more specific prayers to be praying in the days ahead.

Love you all Bunches,

His,
Vickie