Today I woke up quite well, had my shower, dressed up and sat down to have my breakfast. You probably don’t want to know what it was but let us say tea was involved and the escort is something that my nutritionist would not be happy I ate. Promise that if I tell you, you will not spill the beans…(whisper…queen cakes..2 of them). I get this need to turn on the TV and I scroll the channels and settle for Deliverance TV and there is T.D. Jakes preaching. Loo and behold…his sermon captures my attention. Here is what I got from the 40mins I sat there, fixed on to the screen, sipping on my tea and chewing on my cakes…as tears also dripped down my cheeks.
The sermon was about God’s will versus my will. T.D. Jakes used the story of Jonah to illustrate about God’s will versus my will. I must say I believe with all my heart that God caused me to switch on the TV so I could hear this very sermon, for me to understand things that have happened to me since December 2013.
So the sermon taught me this………
Jonah 1
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
God’s will upon Jonah was to use him to preach to the people of Nineveh and warn them that in 40 days, God was going to bring down Nineveh. Nineveh was a city built with great technology at that time, they had all a city would need from high experimenter walls for protection against attack, they had a self sustained economy and Jonah did not particularly like them because they were arrogant people. They did not believe in God but worshiped a female goddess. But Jonah decided to to go Tarshish and got into a ship headed not for where God wanted him to go but where he wanted to go. Note that God did not stop him. But along the journey, there was a bad bad storm and the ship was tossed all over the sea and eventually Jonah was thrown off board by the other passangers and eventually a large Whale swallowed him. See how God did not consider the the lives of the other passengers on that ship. He was interested in getting Jonah where He wanted him to go because He had a purpose for Jonah. Then God changed the digestive system of the whale and it caused the whale to throw up what it had in its belly and out came Jonah having not been digested by the whale’s stomach juices. Jonah was thrown up and eventually the waters swept him to land near some mountains which were not near where Nineveh. Mark that Jonah was in the Whale’s stomach for 3 days and 3 nights and until he prayed to God and repented, that is when God made the whale to throw up. So Jonah walked up the mountains, he was tired and despite the fatigue, he walked for 3 days to get to the city where he, the one who hated the people of Nineveh, told them what God had asked him to do. TO REPENT. For in 40 days, the city of Nineveh would be destroyed. The people who did not worship God but they fasted, they did not give any food to their animals and babies, and women prayed while laying on the ground, men prayed to the God of Jonah and God heard His people and He healed them and healed their land and God did not destroy them. Note that Jonah was in the same place where the people of Nineveh were and he too had to repent, not years before he was sent but days before he preached to he people of Nineveh. God taught these people that He was the God of their god and He was supreme over all. He is the ever present, ever powerful and there is no place on earth you will ever go to hide yourself from Him. Jonah repented while in the whale’s stomach and God heard him.
The Moral of the story is that God’s will will have to come to pass. Sometimes God will allow us to do as we will because He gave us the ability to make choices. He may choose to go silent and let us have our way but eventually He will cause things to happen and you will find yourself in HELL and whether you want it or not, you will repent and accept Him and then He will turn things around and you will do that which He wanted you to do in the first place. So it not about what we want, it is about what He wants from us. Jonah did not have a 30yrs old experience for him to testify and preach to the Ninevehnites, he had a 6 days old encounter with hell. But he just went through hell, he did not stop there…and so it means that you can only testify about something you know about. So always remember, you too have a story, a testimony that can help another person. No matter how small it is, you have something that can help another person believe God or have the courage to come out of a situation they feel hard to get out of. God came to earth in form of Jesus, His son, and Jesus had a 1st hand experience of how it is to be a human being and so all that which He asks of us is very practical. It is not hard to achieve. Just put your mind and trust in He who is the ruler of the entire universe. God spoke to the people of Nineveh through a man who hated them. This goes to show that we can also be sent to testify to a person we really dont like…dont refuse or else, a whale is our there waiting to swallow you and you will walk Jonah’s painful path of repentance but you will still testify.
My keyboard is smoking…let me rest my thin fingers….keep watching this space for more stories…
I rest my case!!