Being in the way of God's plans

Most of you guys following my journey by reading my blogs would know of our blog challenge that we had during the month of May. Our daily blogs could give you a glimpse of what we go through on a daily basis. This blog is about my time in Malaysia and Thailand. It is however not about the daily activities as you have already seen most of that. This blog is about what God personally taught me through all these experiences.

We spent our last few days in Phuket with Tobi and his family. One of the days Tobi shared with us about the story of Jonah…

If you think about Jonah, you automatically think of a big fish or a whale of some sort and how Jonah had to spend 3 days in the beast’s belly before repenting and obeying God. Moral of the story: Obey God the first time round and you will avoid bad things to come across your path. Right?

Few people ever remember what happened with Jonah when he actually went to Nineveh and did what God asked Him. The crux of the story of Jonah lie chapter 4.

Jonah was a Jew, one of God’s chosen people. Even better, he was a prophet, someone that heard God’s word directly and conveyed it to the people. So he was quite an important guy, or so he thought.

Nineveh was one of the biggest cities of the time and renowned for its wickedness and ungodliness. Jonah, obviously aware of this fact, wanted nothing to do with this. Firstly because he didn’t want to mix with those despicable sinners (as if he was clean of sin himself) and secondly because he knew God’s character. In Jonah 4:2-3 he says to God, “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to anger and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.” It was all about his own ego and pride. If he was going to prophecy that God would destroy them if they did not repent and God showed mercy, then Jonah would look like a fool.

Jonah prophesied, the people repented, God showed mercy and Jonah was angry. God also sent a cucumber plant to provide shade for Jonah from the harsh sun. Then, when God sent a worm to destroy the plant, Jonah was angry with God. God replied by saying, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120 000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” – Jonah 4: 10-11.

This message revealed to me what God was trying to teach me all through our time in South East Asia. As I thought about this revelation, I paged through my journal and read about my journey of the previous month. I realized that in many instances I had the same pride in me that Jonah had in him.

There were about four or five occasions where I was involved in big arguments with local people who would either refuse to help us or try to con us out of our money. After each of these incidents I walked away feeling that I was right in my argument, but totally wrong in how I went about sorting out the problem. It was all out of anger, emotion and pride because someone was trying to take what was mine.

What is mine…? Nothing! All I have is a blessing, a gift from God. If God gave it to me freely, why should I be angry when I see that I might lose it? That is saying to God that I do not believe that He would provide again. Where is the faith in that?!

I also felt guilty because of the example that I set… for the people I was having the argument with, but also for my team. I doubt that any of those people would want to know Jesus if I had told them that I was a Christian and a representative of Him. My emotions and pride was standing in the way of somebody seeing Jesus through me. My opinion of wrong or right was keeping God from carrying out His plans. Take a moment and think about it… I was standing between the almighty God and one of His children getting to know Him. I would never want to be there again, but how many people that say they are Christians do the same by professing their Christian faith with their mouths and doing the total opposite? Scary!

God showed me that His name is to be glorified above all else and if that means that I should be the least although I know that I am right, then so be it.

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” – Ephesians 3:20