Jonah 15 All the sailors were afraid and
each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten
the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell
into a deep sleep. (NIV)
When I read this I was
immediately intrigued…I have been where Jonah is, as part of my process with
God. See we might look at Jonah and
judge him. We might look at the other
sailors and say “why are they crying out to gods who can’t help?” All of these
are valid perceptions, but we have to look with our spiritual eyes. We don’t know Jonah’s story up to this point,
we just know that God has told him to go and do something he REALLY does not
want to do! I have been there too. We don’t know what Jonah’s has been through
or where he is in his God process. He might be waiting on God to do something
in His life. He might be in a long
season of wait, dealing with trials and tribulations. I know that when I get spiritually weary, all
I want to do is go to sleep and make it all go away. I can imagine that is where Jonah was. Make it go away.
I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. It. God.
At least the sailors were
doing something. They were at the crying
out stage. Jonah was just done. When we are in that place we have to understand
the danger of giving in to the deep sleep.
We can get stuck there. It might
look like depression. We might wonder
why we are so tired and can’t catch up on sleep. Whatever the symptoms, the root cause is
weariness in our spirit. The only thing
that will cure it is perseverance and obedience.
The Holy Spirit will empower
us to move forward. Get up. Even if it is not pretty. So I encourage you today if you are feeling
that your trail has been too long, persevere and do whatever is next to
do. Even if you don’t think you have the
strength, God will give you the strength if you wake up, get up and cry out to
Him.
