“But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the LORD.” Jonah 1:3 (NLT)
One of our neighbors – let’s call her Dory – is not a very ‘likable’ person. A few days ago, she pulled up in front of our house and honked her horn. Rather than getting out of her car, Dory expects us to stop whatever we’re doing and come running when she honks. My poor husband has the patience of Job, so I usually ask him to go out and talk to her.
Let me be honest with you: I don’t like Dory. In fact, I’ll do just about anything to avoid her.
So when God spoke to my heart, saying, “You need to tell Dory about Jesus,” I balked.
My response was less than stellar. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“But you know her lips spew filth, bitterness, and hatred. She’s a contentious woman, unpleasant to deal with. Lord, she even smells bad.”
“She still needs Jesus.”
So to calm my conscience, I set a gift bag on her porch last Christmas. Along with cookies and a candle, I included a copy of my Christmas devotional, The Light Has Come.
“Okay, Lord. That’s the closest I’m coming to her. I gave her the devotional, now it’s up to you to convict.”
“What if I had done the same with you?” God whispered to my heart. “What if I had deemed the world too unfriendly, too sin-riddled, to come and die in your place?”
Ouch!
In that moment, I realized my attitude wasn’t all that different from Jonah’s: “Who me? Go to the Ninevites and preach repentance? Uh-unh. Not me.”
So Jonah ran away from God’s assignment.
Just as I’m running from my own Nineveh.
The truth is that serving God has nothing to do with comfort or convenience. It has everything to do with conviction — the conviction that people all around me need rescuing, the conviction that my neighbor’s eternal destiny matters more than any temporary discomfort.
Prayer: Lord, I thank you for being willing to leave all the joys of heaven to come to our broken world. Thank you for dying in my place. Help me see people not as physical beings but as souls. Help me be willing to step out of my comfort zone and surrender my will and my ways. May I always seek the furtherance of your Kingdom above all else. In your name, I pray. Amen.