Taking My Own Advice

Sometimes you just have to spend a little time reflecting. You have to take a few minutes to sort out the truth. You have to remember where you have been and where you are going. This has been one of those times for me.

I forgot something. I forgot who I was in Christ. It doesn't take long for the Enemy to move in when you open the door for him. I even asked him to bring his friends...doubt, self pity, unworthiness...you know the type. Before I knew it I felt like Jonah, at the bottom of the ocean, when he said,

"The waters closed in around me, and seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountians. I was locked out of life and imprisioned in the land of the dead." Jonah 2:5-6

Have you ever felt like there was no way out of a situation? It could be finances, a bad relationship, a wrong decision, a lie or something that started off small and innocent and then when it grew up you recognized how big and bad it really was. Jonah mad a bad decision. He was disobedient to God. He ran from the call on his life and endangered the people around him.

I want you to know that God is bigger than any bad decision. If I have learned anything from Jonah it is that God has enough grace to help you, the people around you and the city you left behind. He has helped me climb out of the pit of dispaire. Jonah said it best, "But you, O Lord my God, have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!"

I don't know what is going on in your life. I don't know if you are running, if you are sinking or if you are at the bottom of the ocean, but God knows exactly where you are and He wants to meet you there. When Jonah was in the belly of the fish, in the pit of dispair, uncertian of his future, he prayed... "When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple." Even if you have turned your back on God you are not beyond His saving grace.

I wrote this post to tell you that sometimes we have to take our own advice. Sometimes we have to remember where we were when we found God. We have to let Him walk us through those hard times and remind us that He was there then and He is here now.

I had to reread some of my old posts today. I needed to remember that I said I wasn't going to worry. I had to remember that I am not forgotten. I had to remember to be thankful. I had to remember that I am the clay, not the potter. Sometimes I am forgetful and I have to resurrender my thoughts to God. I had let all of those things creep in and cloud my vision.

I felt like chaff in the wind. I felt like Jonah at the bottom of the ocean. But you know what? God had mercy on Jonah. He saved him. He picked him up from the bottom of the ocean and used him to change the face of eternity for a whole city of people. I have to think...what could He do with me? What could He do with you?