Time for Rest

Alone

Silence

Stillness

Usually I try 

To avoid them

I don't want to know

The thoughts

Swirling in my head

People

Noise

Busy-ness

My companions

I don't hear

The voices in my head

I'm not listening

To the things that challenge me

Alone

Silence

Stillness

There's beauty

In these things

Necessity

Without them

I don't function well

People

Noise

Busy-ness

Eventually destroy

Leave me wanting

Looking for more

If I survive

On them alone

The Far-Reaching Cost of Disobedience

Jonah was told by God to go to Ninevah. He refused and went the other way. Jonah was thrown overboard in a storm and spent three days in a fish. Then he was spit back up on land and finally went to Ninevah.

I heard that story countless times in Sunday School growing up. When you hear something often enough you begin to assume you know the whole thing. For a long time I would skim the book of Jonah rather than read it, relying on my memory from Sunday School to fill in the details.

I recently sat down and decided to slowly and carefully read it again. I was only five verses in when I was struck by the cost of Jonah's disobedience and the cost wasn't just limited to him.

Jonah is on a boat going away from Ninevah. He's running from God. Jonah 1:4-5 says:
"Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried to his own god. And they threw cargo into the dea to lighten the ship."

Reread that last sentence again.

This cargo, part of the sailor's income, was thrown into the sea because of the storm that was sent because of Jonah's actions. Jonah's disobedience had a cost for other people too. His choice had far-reaching effects.

The same is true for us. Our choices don't just affect us - they also affect those around us. Even those we might not know very well.

The sailors didn't know Jonah, yet they paid a price for his choice. I don't think Jonah intended for them to pay it, but they did.

When we choose to disobey God, we're not usually intending to make others pay a price, but the truth is they may.

How often do we think that what we do or don't do doesn't affect anyone but ourselves?

The truth is, if we stopped to think about it, we would realize that other people are affected by our choice when we choose to disobey.

I don't know about you, but looking at it that way makes me think again about some things. If my disobedience is going to affect others, especially those I love, then maybe it's not worth it afterall.

Used by God

Most Christians I know want to be used by God for something. They’re hoping for, looking for, and dreaming about the ways that God can use them for His purposes.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, but I think we run into problems with it sometimes because of how we go about waiting for God to use us. We want to be used by God, but until we hear from Him about how He wants to use us we don’t do anything. We sit back and wait for the specific direction.

As I was reading the Old Testament prophet Amos recently, I was struck by what Amos said. In Amos 7, the king of Israel is telling Amos to leave because he doesn’t like Amos’ message. Amos’ response is what struck me. Verses 14-15 say this:

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel'.”

Amos was looking after sheep and trees when God called him to be a prophet and gave him a message. He wasn’t sitting back and doing nothing while he waited for God to give him something to do. He was working at what he had to do at that time.

As I started to think about this more, I began to wonder if God isn’t looking for us to be faithful in serving Him in our day-to-day activities. All those things we do that don’t seem significant, that may not even seem like they’re making a difference for God. When we faithfully serve in those, God is using us for His purposes – even when we can’t see that.

Each day can be filled with divine appointments. Moments where we can point the people we are interacting with to God through our actions and through our words. All these moments are then us being used by God for His purposes, and we didn’t have to sit and wait for Him to tell us what to do. We chose to serve faithfully in our jobs, in our schoolwork, in our interactions with friends and family, in our interactions with those providing services for us.

I believe that being used by God begins with us being faithful in the mundane, every-day tasks and relationships. That’s where we begin.