DEVOTION - WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2012

DEVOTION – WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2012

“A study in separation – Jonah”

BY

BOB COY

For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me...Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ Jonah 2:3-4 (NKJV)

God knows how to break us, and He will. Not so we become useless, but so we can become useful in His hands. This is what we see throughout the arc of Jonah’s life. The Lord used Jonah’s experience of being alone in the darkness of the fish to break him down. God wanted to get him to the place of total surrender, a place where he would embrace rather than resist God’s presence and call upon his life.

Somewhere from the farthest reaches of the sea, amidst the bowels of some unsuspecting creature, from the deepest place in Jonah’s heart, a prayer of repentance is offered. The reluctant prophet breaks, and the “Not thy will, but my will be done” is reversed.

Unconditional surrender to the will of God takes place. And in short order, the Lord gets Jonah back on dry land and repeats His call. This time, Jonah responds much differently:

The word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.”So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. (Jonah 3:1-3 NKJV)

As we see with Jonah, the Lord can use solitude to transform disobedience into obedience. God doesn’t override our free will, but He goes all out to help us exercise it in the right direction. When our will is dead set against what He wills and wants for us, He can put us in a position where we finally decide to surrender and submit to Him.