DIG DEEPER
WHEN THE STORM TELLS THE TRUTH…
Sometimes the most painful moments in life are not random interruptions. Sometimes they expose what has been hiding underneath.
That is what happens to Jonah. The storm is not just bad weather. It is a mercy that drags the truth into the light. Jonah has been running, resisting, and refusing God’s call, and now the outside chaos is revealing his inner chaos. That is often how God works. He loves us too much to let us stay numb forever.
A lot of us do this too. We look calm on the outside, but inside we are running. Running from honesty. Running from obedience. Running from forgiveness. Running from the conversation we know we need to have. Running from that thing God has been pressing on our hearts.
A storm in our life does not automatically mean we have done something wrong. Life is more complicated than that. But sometimes DEEP TROUBLE does become the place where God lovingly interrupts us, wakes us up, and says: STOP RUNNING…COME BACK TO ME.
A REAL LIFE PICTURE…
Think about our phone battery. If it drops to 5%, that warning is annoying. It interrupts what we are doing. But the warning is not our enemy. It is trying to save us from going flat at the worst possible moment. In a similar way, a circumstance of DEEP TROUBLE is not there to destroy us. It is there to wake us up.
REFLECT…
- Is there a storm in your life that might be exposing something deeper?
- Where are you tempted to numb out instead of face what is really going on?
- Have you been calling something “stress” that is actually disobedience, avoidance or pride?
- What would honesty with God sound like right now?
TRY THIS…
In your journal or a space that you can come back to, write a sentence that begins:
“God, I think I’ve been running from…”
HELPFUL EXTRAS [FOR TODAY AND THE REST OF THE WEEK AND BEYOND]…
Should you want to dive a little deeper into the Book of Jonah, the Bible Project has some great resources. Check them out here:
