Running the Distance

I read this entry posted at FES blog, Mugz n Buzz, not too long ago and I thought it was something good to chew on.

To Run or Not To Run

“When you hit the water, reality will hit you. You're not dead yet, but will you live?”

God was dealing with Jonah, but He was keeping him alive too. Disappointed and running away from God. YET, when times got bad, God still heard him.

Then there’s the people of Nineveh who understood their lesson - you sin, you die.

As Christians, there is a danger for us to think: "Oh, I'm past that already. I'm already saved." If you've notice how hard Jonah struggled, you might already realise that your struggling has just begun. God is not content to leave you as you are. Jonah is a story of a passive man facing a very active God. A God who is telling you to look beyond your own salvation.

“I'm glad you're saved, Jonah, what about this great city? My heart is bigger than yours, and I want you to care more than just a plant. As my messenger, I will look out for you.

But before you teach others, I will teach YOU. The lessons that you bring to others, must pierce your heart first. Every day, you and I will check if you are going the right direction, and I CARE enough to stop you when you choose to go the opposite direction.

You will see moments of grace, when you stop running and come to your senses. I will show you how it's done - how to care for people who are different than you, hateful to you, even. You will find moments when you will feel very strongly about something, and you may be WRONG about feeling it.

You will have moments when the sacrifice seems too much, and I will show you how shallow your heart is, to care so much for things that are so small, so temporary, when there are bigger things, things that matter more in eternity - and these are worth Me working with You to reach out to.

As I make you fit to be My messenger, your lessons will help you see My heart. In my relationship with you, I want to bring you to other people whom I also care for. And when you deal with them, I want you to turn to Me.”

Jonah had his call and a message to bear. And a people to tell it to. It’s been less than a month since we heard the message of Jonah. How easy we forget, that we are Jonah many times over. We are Jonah when we….

We invite you to help each other recall.

*********************************************************

Whenever I flip through the pages of Jonah, I always ask this classic question -
"Why was he running away?"
From a classic question you get classic answers like,
"He's afraid",
"He had no desire to go to a foreign land",
and "He couldn't be bothered about the conversion of the Ninevites".

I had lunch with a friend yesterday and had a good chat with her regarding this whole issue of self-appointed-expectation.
Like it or not, it is natural for us to place our own perceived expectation of ourselves in each area of our lives.
For instance, at work, you expect to perform well.
Floorball, I expect to improve each time I go for training.
Often times, these expectations derive from something outside of us;
The people around us.
We expect to do well at work because we feel that our superior expects us to do well.
I expect to improve each time I go for training because I feel that my coach expects to see results.
All of that is true.
Our personal expectation, however, gets distorted by peoples' words and actions and we then, demand a whole lot more of ourselves.

I believe, to a certain extent, Jonah faced that conflict.
God commanded him to a task beyond his comprehension.
He then felt this enormous weight of expectation befall him, one which he felt he could not carry.
He then decides to run away, going the opposite direction.

God doesn't expect us to go more than we can at one go.
You see, I think Jonah was thinking to himself,
"How can I convert the Nineveh? Is He picking the right person or has His compass gone haywire?"
But Jonah forgot one very crucial thing.
All that he was about to do in Nineveh comes not from him but from Him.
We always think that we have to do this and that just to meet God's expectation but we lose out on the bigger picture -
It's all about listening, obeying and understanding that all that we can do or will do in the future comes from Him alone.
To be radical, you first need to understand, and to understand you need to listen.
Get our radar with God on the same wavelength first.

I'm one who has high expectations of myself in different areas of my life.
In some ways, it's a "good" kind of pressure I guess.
It keeps me going for more.
However, there are some things we just gotta take baby steps with.
God develops us as we make a conscious decision to take a step forward with Him.

We crawl, we walk, and only then, we can start running the distance.