Walking With Christ

Where am I supposed to be? How do I know that I’m in the right place, at the right time?

Jonah 1:2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.(ESV)

Jonah was supposed to go to Nineveh, but he didn’t want to go.

Romans 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.(ESV)

Paul wanted to go to Rome, but kept being diverted.

Jonah ended up in Nineveh despite running away. Paul ended up in Rome, just not exactly how he expected. Jonah was swallowed by a whale for three days. Paul travelled to Rome as a prisoner instead of purely as a missionary intent on “reaping the harvest”.

This isn’t to suggest that we are resolved of our responsibility to do what we are called to do. It’s to say that even if we are spiritually deaf and blind we will be led by the hand to where we are supposed to be. The biggest question is how much it will have to hurt before we move forward. God can draw back His hand of protection to let us feel more and more of the consequences of our choices, or He can instigate the events that impossibly work together to bring about the desired result.

Unless God was protecting him, Jonah would have been left with permanent bleaching of the skin as a reminder to be more obedient. Three days swimming in stomach acid would not be nice to the skin or clothes. Even if God did protect Jonah from the worst parts of the acidic reaction, there would have been the smell and other contents in the stomach to contend with. It wouldn’t have been pleasant at all. Paul felt called to Rome, but didn’t know that his time had not yet come. The timing of the God we serve is never early nor late. Jesus arrived at the well at the perfect time to speak to the Samaritan woman alone. He will arrive for each of us at precisely the right moment in our lives or the lives of those we care about. It is not our place to worry about the timing of events. It is our place to seek His face and be obedient to His voice. If we do that then we will always be exactly where we are supposed to be when we are supposed to be there.

Father,
We thank You for Your perfect timing. Not a moment too soon, and not a moment too late. Your will commands the order of events in our lives and knows the desires of our hearts even when we walk away from You. We pray “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” not just to ask You for the petty things in life that are fleeting, at best, but as a reminder that Your will is the root of life itself and is the very thing that binds all of creation into it’s current form. Let us turn to face You, Lord, that we may be cleansed, purified, and made new so that we can more perfectly reflect Your light into the world and that the world may see You in that reflection more clearly than ever before. The world needs Your care, love, and grace, now more than ever. No matter how perfectly Your light shines upon the world, it will never be enough until the day we stand before You and sing Your praises as You pass judgement. The world is sick. It needs the healer. The world is falling farther and farther into darkness. It needs Your light. Smile upon us, Father. Show us Your favor. Give us Your peace. Send us into the world carrying Your cleansing and healing light to push back the darkness that is the enemy who thinks they are winning a fight that’s already been won. We rest in You, Lord, because You are our stronghold, our fortress. Thank You, Father for every gift and mercy You have shown to us.

In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Interesting side note, Jonah was disobedient when he tried to run away from the will of God. He spent three days and three nights in the belly of that whale before being reborn onto dry land. His “rebirth” was followed by the forty days of testing for Nineveh. Jonah was given the proclamation that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days if they had not returned to the Lord. After the forty days, the city was tested and God repented from their destruction because they had repented from their evil ways. Sound familiar?

From the Red Sea to Mt. Sanai was about three months (Exodus 19:1). A year of waiting, including the forty days Moses spent on the mountain, then they moved on the Kadesh-Barnea where they sent the spies into the promised land for forty days. Shortly after the spies return there is a revolt much like what Jonah did. Then they spent forty years wandering around the desert.

Moses went into the water as a child. He came out of the water and spent forty years as a royal. He figuratively bathed in the blood of the Egyptian soldier he kill and spent forty years in Midian as nobody. Then he went into the Red Sea and wandered the desert for forty years helping to form the nation of Israel.

Jesus was baptized, into the water and out again, before spending forty days in the wilderness to prepare for His temptation.

Jesus was lain in the soon to be empty tomb for three days, then He spent forty days with the disciples (Acts 1:3) before ascending to heaven.

I see a pattern here. The purpose of each cycle may be slightly different and the results are not always the same, but the pattern persists. Instruction, encounter with God, transformation/preparation, then testing. This doesn’t cover every story in the bible or guarantee that this pattern will be there for our daily lives. It does suggest that we should expect to recognize such a pattern when we see it.