IS IT RIGHT?

• DAY 259
• FEAR FILE: JONAH
• SCRIPTURE: JONAH 3 & 4

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” Then the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

JONAH 1:1-4

We celebrate when God exceeds our expectations and gives us something we never asked for and it turns out better than we could have dreamed but what do you do when God goes in the opposite direction of your expectation and not in a good way? Let me tell you a short story.

Story Of My Life

Before my husband and I married, we knew we may not be living in Abuja for long. Whenever I felt God was hinting we might leave Abuja I shook it off, it became clear that we would move. Around that time a guest speaker came to church and called me up to say that God was taking me out of Abuja to a foreign country, this was strange because I had no dreams of relocating abroad. A few weeks later my Pastor said God instructed her to give me the globe of the world. I started to pray over that globe and declare the glory of the Lord to cover the earth and for days a state in America came to mind and my husband and I prayed over that state and took note of it. God led us to even pray at the International Airport Abuja.

Fast forward to the end of last year, we knew without a doubt we were to move, imagine my surprise when I heard Lagos. As if that wasn’t good enough, He sent us to the outskirts of Lagos. I cried for days. This was not what I was expecting. I never dreamed of relocating abroad till He brought it up and now He sends me to some run-down town in a city I didn’t like. I was NOT expecting that, and I did not like it. So I get why Jonah refused to go. I do not support it but I can relate.

Not The Plan

Jonah was not expecting that God would change His mind. It was bad enough that he never wanted to go there in the first place but God put Him through all that only to forgive them. Those wicked people? Nah! The last time God declared judgment on a sinful city, it caught fire, He was hoping it would go that way. All these people would die in 40 days like God said and that would be it. Mercy was not in the job description. And if it was, God didn’t need to get him involved. Jonah was depressed and angry.

You already know that Jonah was so wrong for being angry at God for being God. He was also wrong for wishing harm on people just because he didn’t like them and disobeying God, at first, because of it. People of faith are not like that. We do not have the right to disapprove of God’s decision. We also cannot dictate what He does. To live a life of faith is to let God lead and not the other way around. It’s to surrender to His plan His way. We expose ourselves to depression and other manifestations of fear when we expect that God will do what pleases us instead of what He purposed.

Courageous people understand that trusting God is surrender and it may hurt our flesh but it is in God’s will we find peace. So if you hate what God is sending you to do or it was not what you expected, do it anyway. But now will be a good time to take a moment or 10 to pray for grace.

Shalom