What Should I Do Now?

What Should I Do Now?

How did I get here?

Scripture Reference: Jonah 1:1-5 (KJV)

1 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.

Many of us look at the situations that we find ourselves in now and we begin to wonder and consider, “How did we get here?”

We often like to blame our circumstances on the people that are closest to us even though we know somewhere deep down inside that they really did not have anything to do with us being where we are.

I would like to take this opportunity today to suggest to you that if you feel like you are down and out then you should know that it is highly possible that you went off course when you stopped following God and allowing his will to govern your life.

This brings us to our scripture today

We are here looking at the life of Jonah.

One thing we should all agree about Jonah is that what God did in his life is so miraculous that it is easier to write it off as just a folk tale rather than accept it as true

People would rather write off things that happen in your life as coincidental rather than admitting that God could have possibly done what we are confessing that he did in our lives

Jonah obviously had a relationship with God because God opens by asking him to go and deliver His word by crying against the city. (verse 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.)

Delivering the word of God is a really serious matter. Not just anyone can do it.

It does not take a certain level of education; neither are there any age restraints.

The restraints come from our willingness to do His will.

The more God blesses us the less we truly see a need to be a blessing however he calls us.

We can begin to think of ourselves too educated when we get an education.

We can begin to think of ourselves in a better financial bracket so we think that we should not live here or go there

To be honest I must admit that if we ever look for any reason to stop the word of God from being delivered we will ALWAYS find a good reason why we should stop the word.

Jonah did more than just not deliver the word of God he actually went an opposite way from what God had ordered him to go. Many of us find ours elves in positions that are much farther away than simply not doing what God has ordered us to do but we are going as far as to go the opposite way that he has designed for us o move.

If we take a look and notice we would see that at the same moment that he starts to deal with his troubles go hand in hand with the moment he began to disobey God. , and went down to Joppa; the bible could have clearly used many directions to describe the way to Joppa but we need to see that the bible says that in order to get to this place of disobedience Jonah had to go down.

Another way that we see God punishing Jonah for his disobedience is allowing Jonah to have to pay. so he paid the fare thereof

We need to realize that one of the most expensive things that we can do is disobey the word of God. There are not many instances in the bible that talk about someone having to pay for something like Jonah did when it came to going the opposite way of the word of God.

When I think about God and how good he has been to me I often think about how he has blessed my finances but one of the other very important things that I must realize about God is that he protected what I had.