Has God asked you to do something you just DID NOT want to do?
Any and every excuse is made to challenge His call. As Charles Stanley put it,
“The Lord isn’t interested in excuses or selfish ambitions. He desires only obedience. He has reasons for asking a believer to take a specific action, and His purposes are always good. The Lord doesn’t change His plan to suit our purpose. Rather, He’ll use events, people, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit to move us into the center of His will. For your own benefit, go willingly. You may not like the task God assigns, but if He wants it done, then it must be worthwhile.”
Some of my excuses have been these:
- I am not equipped to do this, I don’t know how.
- I’m not smart enough.
- I can’t, I have no experience, someone else would do a better job.
- I don’t have enough time.
- No one will listen to me, I have no special training.
- I am afraid people will call me out
There has been plenty of times when God has laid something on my heart to do and I have put it off- but -He kindly keeps bringing it back to my mind until I follow through. Sometimes I may know the outcome of the action I take, other times, I will not know.
It doesn’t matter, all that matters is that I was obedient to do what I was asked to do.
In the Bible, in the Book of Jonah we read Jonah’s story. God asked him to go to Nineveh to warn these people that God was going to bring judgement on them because of their great wickedness.
Jonah had his reasons for not listening too:
- Jonah was afraid of what would happen to him there.
- Jonah did not want these people to repent or be spared because they were the fiercest enemy of Jonah’s people, he would rather that they be judged.
Jonah’s answer was simply put- ” I WON”T” and he took off in the opposite direction of Nineveh, hopping on a ship to Tarshish, a great and wealthy city on the coast of Spain. Once aboard, he headed down into the hold of the ship and made himself very comfortable, falling into a deep sleep. Most likely, he was feeling quite relieved that he was now safe, away from his unwanted call of God.
God knew exactly where Jonah was and He had a plan to help him change his mind about the call to Nineveh. (PS We can’t hide from God!)
Jonah 1:4 God, the Eternal One, threw an intense wind at the sea, so violent that the ship was in jeopardy and the sailors panicked. Attempting to keep the ship upright, they began to throw cargo overboard to lighten the ship and every man onboard began to call out to their own deity.
Nothing was helping the situation and they noticed that Jonah was sleeping and not calling out to his God. They woke him up and told him to call out to his God to see if that would help.
Jonah told them that he was a Hebrew; that he worshiped the Eternal One and that his God made the sea and the land and so He controls them. The sailors accused Jonah of getting them all killed.
Jonah told the sailors that the sea would calm down if they threw him into the sea. They were reluctant to do this but their lives were at stake so they threw him into the sea.
God was gracious to Jonah and provided a large fish to swallow him whole. Jonah had three smelly and uncomfortable days in the belly of that fish to reconsider God’s call to go to Nineveh. He did change his mind- his “I won’t” became “I will” and he did go to Nineveh to give the warning of judgement.
The Ninevites listened to the warning from Jonah’s God, the Eternal One, and took it very seriously. They repented and therefore the imminent judgement was withheld by God.
Their repentance made Jonah angry!
Jonah 4: 1-3 “Jonah complained to the Lord about it: Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”
Thank God for these truths: Our God is a God of mercy, of compassion, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love!
I pray that we who claim to be followers of Christ will be attentive to God’s call on our lives and not delay in carrying out whatever He calls us to do.
Philippians 4:13 says:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”