Calling all Jonahs : Seven day devotional

DAY 1

At the start of the year, I was on a return journey myself and somewhere in the midst of all that's been happening around us now, I sensed that the whole world is kind of on a return too - air, water, nature, people, you get the gist! The Lord has been speaking to me the last few weeks about praying for the Jonahs in the church. To say that the message was a 'double edged sword' would be an understatement. Since most of us know the story of Jonah, I am going to keep it short - Jonah was a prophet of God who was given a mission from God. Jonah didn’t agree with God’s plan, decided he had a better plan and got on a ship and headed, well, in the opposite direction.

Some of us have been going our own way, maybe because we didn’t like God’s plan for us or because of our life’s cares & difficulties or maybe we have forgotten God’s calling on our life and some have even suppressed it. But God wants to wake us up during this storm that is happening around us, and we might as well acknowledge that this is indeed a storm.

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DAY 2

“The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”” - Jonah 1:6‬ ‭(NIV)‬‬

It says that Jonah was in a deep sleep. There is a certain sleep that comes when we are so disconnected from God’s plan in our lives that even in the midst of a storm we can sleep right through it. We think it doesn’t apply to us or that we have so many other things to do or that God can find someone else to do it, maybe someone better? But here’s the thing; He wants you!

There are many who have a deeper calling on their lives to be in full time ministry, and others who do part time, but every one of us have been commissioned to take His Word to the nations. Since this word came to me, I confess that I am a Jonah, but I believe there are many others too, who even now, are being awakened to their calling and purpose just as I am. This is not about you dear Jonah, this is about Him and His calling on your life. He is waiting for you, ready to trust you with His harvest.

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DAY 3

“Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.” - Jonah ‭1:7‬ (‭NIV‬‬)

Even after being woken up, that’s another thing that we do, we resist.

Some of us have been getting that stirring in our hearts to do something, but we think “no I am not ready” or “no I am not qualified” or “no this is too hard”. Trust me, I sat on this word for 3 weeks before I wrote it down and then another week to put it here. While I don’t know what your exact thoughts are, I can tell you some of mine, they went something like this; ”let me fix my life with God”, “let God finish dealing with me” and “there are a lot of messages out there now... who wants to hear one more?”. But all of this is futile thinking.

I remember reading once, that Jonah lost his testimony when he rebelled against God and went his own way. But I would like to say this, to myself and to anyone else who needs to hear it; he woke up and called unto his God! I pray that we let this storm wake us up from our lukewarmness or rebellion or halfheartedness or any other lie that the enemy has led us to believe and fulfill His purpose in our lives. Because just like God got Jonah’s attention, He has gotten mine and hopefully now, He has gotten yours.

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DAY 4

“So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”” - Jonah ‭1:8‬ (‭NIV)‬‬

I don’t know about you, but if someone were to ask me questions like these when I was in my rebellion, I don’t know what my response would have been. It would seem insane to think that all these people’s lives were in danger because of one man who decided to rebel against God, and it would be very hard to accept that you are suddenly being held responsible for something that nature is doing. I mean, that doesn’t make sense to us today right? How can that tornado happen because of me? How can that earthquake have anything to do with me? Or how does a pandemic have anything to do with me? I am right there with you on this, except, God spoke to me, and He spoke about Jonah. So I had a choice - to shrug it off or to search my heart, and since all my shrugging got me nowhere, I decided I'm going to go with the other option.

I searched my heart, and I believe that’s all He wants us to do first, to take this moment to search our hearts.

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DAY 5

“He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”” - ‭‭Jonah ‭1:9‬ (‭NIV‬‬)

And there it is; Jonah acknowledging who he is & who his God is.

Some of us have lost our true identity and we are ready to be whatever people want us to be. We go from being a rebel, to being someone with divided loyalty, ready to compromise , swinging like a pendulum. And when the pendulum stops swinging, which it eventually will, we come to a halt and find ourselves trying to answer questions similar to the ones they asked Jonah; “Who have I become?” and “what am I really running away from?”.

In this moment I can almost imagine Jonah swinging; should he just pretend be one of them? or deny and say that the lot was wrong? that he was not the cause of the storm? But he didn’t! He decided to confess who he was; “I am a Hebrew and I belong to...”.

If there is ever a time to truly know and acknowledge who we are & whose we are... I believe it is now...

There is work to be done... a work that has our name on it - Is it to pray or to encourage or to comfort or to help? ... only we know what God has spoken into our spirit...

For until we do, there is no real rest in this storm for our soul...

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DAY 6

“This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” - Jonah ‭1:10‬ (‭NIV)‬‬

“What have you done?”

Maybe you've done something terrible or maybe you have done nothing at all (and sometimes that's a problem too). But none of that matters now because here is the more important question; What are you going to do?

Do you know what Jonah did?

““Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”” - Jonah ‭1:12‬ ‭(NIV)‬‬

I am not entirely sure if all those on board that ship were without fault or had never done anything wrong. They all may have had their own running away, denial or whatever else was going on in their lives. But Jonah took it upon himself and stepped up. He didn’t care what others did or did not do. He didn’t concern himself with anything except his own conscience before God. He decided, "I am going to forget whatever happened so far, forget what they think of me, forget what they will say about me after this, and I am going to surrender myself to God in this moment come what may".

So the next question is; Have we reached our 'come what may' yet?

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DAY 7

“Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.” - Jonah ‭1:15‬ (‭NIV‬‬)

Honestly, I don’t know if I have that in me, because unlike Jonah, I may go so far as to step up but somewhere inside of me, I'm hoping that I don’t have to go through with it all the way.

I'm sure we all have good intentions in our hearts. We want to be good people and not harm or hurt anyone. But to do that, sometimes the choices we have to make may involve us having to lay down our way, agenda, reputation or even our lives and the way we have been living it until now. Because sometimes, stepping up means stepping down; down into deeper waters, and that would mean sacrificing any possibility of somehow weathering the storm, and instead free falling into the turbulent waters.

It says “...and the raging sea grew calm”. What if in doing that, we will finally find calm for this unrest within us?

Are we ready to trust God in this storm?

Are we ready to let Him finish what He started in us?

Are we ready to let ourselves free fall and experience what is the full extent of God’s mercy towards us and this world we live in?

I pray that the Jonahs of the church would awake & arise, Lord, starting with me...

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