Jonah?
Like everything else, the book of Jonah is in the Bible for a reason.
It shows us that God's will is gonna get done. Sometimes we refuse and God sends someone else. I believe one good example of this is the story of Barak in the book of Judges. God told Barak, Barak balked, and someone else got the credit for his victory. A woman, in fact.
In Jonah's case, he spent three days in the belly of a fish thinking it over. God sent Jonah, not someone else.
When things started going wrong on the ship Jonah was on, he figured it out quickly and told the crew to throw him overboard. When they did, the storm subsided for them and they praised God. For Jonah, things got weird. He got swallowed up by a fish and had some time to think things over. And after three days, he was vomited up on dry land.
The last couple of posts may not have been the most coherent, but they paint a picture. One that led me to believe it was time to move in a different direction. Maybe I didn't want to. Maybe I could have made a different choice, but in speaking to a couple of mature believers, one before I made the decision to tell the woman I was dating about the circumstances, and one after agreeing with her that it's best to just be friends, I think I made the right decision.
It's easy for people to laugh at my situation. That's happened to me three times now, when I've explained it but I also understand it's normal to laugh at disbelief. I didn't laugh. I couldn't. Because I had a decision to make about the circumstances, and it was simply this:
Was this God at work?
That's a tough call. Because I don't have an immediate answer. What I know is that, for purposes I don't understand, God allowed these things to happen. It bore some fruit. The woman and her sister are new believers! Praise God for that.
And know too, that there's a lot I haven't told all y'all. Stuff that I don't even understand (OK, I don't get most of this!) that helped me decide I was on the wrong road.
I decided too, that a Facebook fast was in order, so I would quit seeing stuff. I figure that right now, I really need to hear God. He finds a way.
He's pretty good at that.
I read something about a week ago that talked about Pharaoh deciding about ending the plague of frogs. Moses asked him when he wanted the plague to end. Pharaoh's reply, oddly: "Tomorrow."
Tomorrow? Dude, NOW! Make it STOP! But I'm not Pharaoh. I'm Dale, and sometimes, I'm a tomorrow guy. I wasn't gonna talk to the woman I was dating until Thursday. I saw a thing on Facebook that convinced me that it needed to be done on Wednesday. I've seen some pretty odd "suggested posts" recently. That one helped me decide it was time to uninstall Facebook from my phone for a month. I thought it would help.
God has other ways of making His points. I heard that same thing about the frogs on the radio this morning. It's just how our relationship is. If I try to pull a Jonah, it's gonna get very, very bad for me.
I dunno what happens next. I know what I'm doing to see. I'm alone. I'm willing to go where God leads. In the mean time, there is stuff to be done around here. I still have to clean out the basement. The laundry room will have to be re-tiled shortly. It can't wait too much longer. Other than that, I'm available. Just not for dating.
And God will, in His good time, explain it, or cause it to come to pass. In the mean time, nobody got into the wrong boat, or got swallowed whole by a fish. And maybe, it's just a little detour to help some other people to come to know Christ as Savior! I think that's most likely the case, but then again, that's a different story for another time, and only a theory at best.
It shows us that God's will is gonna get done. Sometimes we refuse and God sends someone else. I believe one good example of this is the story of Barak in the book of Judges. God told Barak, Barak balked, and someone else got the credit for his victory. A woman, in fact.
In Jonah's case, he spent three days in the belly of a fish thinking it over. God sent Jonah, not someone else.
When things started going wrong on the ship Jonah was on, he figured it out quickly and told the crew to throw him overboard. When they did, the storm subsided for them and they praised God. For Jonah, things got weird. He got swallowed up by a fish and had some time to think things over. And after three days, he was vomited up on dry land.
The last couple of posts may not have been the most coherent, but they paint a picture. One that led me to believe it was time to move in a different direction. Maybe I didn't want to. Maybe I could have made a different choice, but in speaking to a couple of mature believers, one before I made the decision to tell the woman I was dating about the circumstances, and one after agreeing with her that it's best to just be friends, I think I made the right decision.
It's easy for people to laugh at my situation. That's happened to me three times now, when I've explained it but I also understand it's normal to laugh at disbelief. I didn't laugh. I couldn't. Because I had a decision to make about the circumstances, and it was simply this:
Was this God at work?
That's a tough call. Because I don't have an immediate answer. What I know is that, for purposes I don't understand, God allowed these things to happen. It bore some fruit. The woman and her sister are new believers! Praise God for that.
And know too, that there's a lot I haven't told all y'all. Stuff that I don't even understand (OK, I don't get most of this!) that helped me decide I was on the wrong road.
I decided too, that a Facebook fast was in order, so I would quit seeing stuff. I figure that right now, I really need to hear God. He finds a way.
He's pretty good at that.
I read something about a week ago that talked about Pharaoh deciding about ending the plague of frogs. Moses asked him when he wanted the plague to end. Pharaoh's reply, oddly: "Tomorrow."
Tomorrow? Dude, NOW! Make it STOP! But I'm not Pharaoh. I'm Dale, and sometimes, I'm a tomorrow guy. I wasn't gonna talk to the woman I was dating until Thursday. I saw a thing on Facebook that convinced me that it needed to be done on Wednesday. I've seen some pretty odd "suggested posts" recently. That one helped me decide it was time to uninstall Facebook from my phone for a month. I thought it would help.
God has other ways of making His points. I heard that same thing about the frogs on the radio this morning. It's just how our relationship is. If I try to pull a Jonah, it's gonna get very, very bad for me.
I dunno what happens next. I know what I'm doing to see. I'm alone. I'm willing to go where God leads. In the mean time, there is stuff to be done around here. I still have to clean out the basement. The laundry room will have to be re-tiled shortly. It can't wait too much longer. Other than that, I'm available. Just not for dating.
And God will, in His good time, explain it, or cause it to come to pass. In the mean time, nobody got into the wrong boat, or got swallowed whole by a fish. And maybe, it's just a little detour to help some other people to come to know Christ as Savior! I think that's most likely the case, but then again, that's a different story for another time, and only a theory at best.
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