By Rachel Joy
You know the story of Jonah, right?? The story of the guy who ran away from God, in order to not go to Nineveh.
The guy who spent three days in the belly of a whale.
The guy that everyone looks at and is, like, “Well, duh, I would have gone straight to Nineveh. Because I am super cool and holy and stuff.”
The stuck up jerk that actually wanted Nineveh to burn to the ground.
People look at Jonah and they are like, “Yo, dude! Get your head in the right place! Don’t you know that God had a plan for your life?? Have you not seen that God made the world? And yet you still did that.”
The truth of the matter is that I am a lot like Jonah.
I look at Jonah’s choices and think, “Yeah. I would have done that too.”
I tend to run when things scare me. If I don’t have an answer, I do what’s easiest. I run and hide. (And it’s gonna take a really long time to get me to come out. The door will be closed. And do not knock unless you have chocolate or you are one of my parents. And even then, I might throw a fluffy, pink, elephant at you.)
And even once I have faced my fear, I still tend to fear it. Thoughts like, “What if that were to happen again??” Become something that dominates my thought life, when I am around that fear.
When I look at the life of Jonah, I tend to be like, “Yeah. I totally would have done just what you did!”
The choices Jonah made, make sense to me.
Running is the easy answer. “If I just don’t talk to this fear, look at them; respond to their emails, etc. Everything will be better.”
I don’t like to face my fears. Much less be kind to my fears.
(Re-reading: It seems to look from the way I’m writing, that I have a lot of fears. I really don’t. I’m just taking my biggest one (the occasional fear of conflict) and using that for this whole thing. I also don’t like change, falling, and admitting that I’m afraid of anything. So… Yeah.)
But like Jonah, if we face our fears, great things may happen.
Could we be a light in the darkness of this world if we just faced our fears?
If we gave all our fears to our King, the mighty warrior who died to save our lives from all fears, what would happen?
Would we be brave enough to war with our friends who need prayer? Would we be brave enough to walk across the room to talk to that person who needs someone to comfort them and encourage them?
Would we be brave enough to go into the entire world and preach the good news to all of creation?
~Rachel Joy
My name is Rachel Joy and I live in Washington State (go Seahawks!) I am 16 and I have been homeschooling for 10 years. I enjoy photography, writing, music, and playing with my overactive kitten. I also blog at http://notesfrommycornerofcreation.blogspot.com. I would love to hear from you!