“Go now and denounce it for its wickedness stares me in the face!”

Have you ever been asked to do something by that still quiet voice inside of you? Maybe it was to ask forgiveness of someone. Maybe it was to go visit someone you’d slighted and been avoiding. Or maybe it was to do a job that you’d neglected.

Sometimes the “ask” comes in the form of a dream as what happened to Jonah in the Bible. He was asked to go to the town of Nineveh and confront the people about their blatant “wickedness.” He wasn’t asked to change them, not to show them a different way, nor to take care of them, but just to stand and denounce.

In Jonah’s story, instead of doing what he was asked to do, Jonah put up a road map of excuses to escape from what he knew he needed to do. This map of adjustment led him on several detours which eventually landed him in the belly of a large fish.

How do we end up in the “belly of a large fish?”

1. I take on the pretence of control, like Jonah;

2. I take on the job of worrying, like Jonah;

3. I take on the job of manager, manipulating like Jonah;

4. I take on the responsibility of predicting the future, like Jonah.

If I insist on doing more than what God asked me to do in the first place, I will lose myself on the way and be swallowed up by the proverbial whale.

Are you ready to get out of that “belly?”