Remembering the future is God's

“This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 NIV

Do you know what God knows?? Do you know what God is doing?? Consider the lyrics from the chorus, Something Beautiful: "Something beautiful..something good..all our confusion..He understood..all we have to offer Him is brokenness and strife..So let Him make something beautiful..out of our lives!!!" I'm sure if some of you have not sung that chorus...you will be able to reap the full meaning of the lyrics!  God knows what He is doing and we have such a hard time accepting that don't we? Knowing that the end is beautiful takes knowing that God is beautiful and very Good! Also, we must always remember that the future is in the hands of the only good God.  Let's look at some of the goodness God displayed in the book of Jonah; let's revel in some of His grace.

Did you know that the whole of Nineveh was about 600k people plus?? Amazing to think that the capital of Assyria, the capital of evil and enemy to God was the center of God's focus! No matter what we have done and no matter how far we have strayed, our God has always been in the business of redeeming His creation from the beginning of creation.  Sadly, so many of us see the Lord as impersonal, or harsh in the Old testament. In contrast, we see God as full of fuzzy wuzzy cute stuff in the New testament! Well, if that's you..let me help you adjust your lens! God's Love is God..and you cannot separate God from His love..His perfect love, even from the parts of love we'd rather forget Also, God is unchanging and is the same God of the New testament that He is in the Old testament...!! Therefore, we must worship God as God and not as a poor imitation of Him. Forever may His Holy name be praised!! Our Perfect God has never wanted any of us to perish and He was willing to die just to make sure that we had a chance to live...Now, that's the Truth!! Harsh...?? Not even close!!! Our God is the missionary in every instance throughout the Bible! God, who knew from the beginning that humanity would sin again and again, planned the redemption before the creation...wow!! God also knew..that the people of Nineveh would repent...but now I'm getting too far ahead...sorry!! Let's focus on some of the facts about Nineveh shall we?? We looked at how God wanted to save you and me and any enemy out of His great Love...But what do you think Jonah saw?? Let's make a little shopping list of all the things the leader of Nineveh might need to accomplish in a typical day in order to shed some light on the issue:
A. Cut off hands
B. Cut off noses
C. Sacrifice children
D. Fillet people alive
E. Pagan Worship
F. Plan attacks on God's Holy Children, Israel
Well, there are so many more things to mention, but for the sake of time...are any of you excited to get Ancient Assyria stamped on your passport?? Mauii anyone??

Well, God's bags were already packed and the sunscreen was left on the counter! God was ready to go on an action packed Work and Witness trip to the capital city of crabapples!! Yummy!! Jonah, son of Ammitai...go to the great city of Nineveh and ..Where?? What??? Sorry Lord, but have you lost your mind...running low on the vacation budget??? Let's go build castles in Spain instead!! Tarshish, by the way..is modern day Spain! Check out the map at the beginning of this blog!  The reality is that we will take huge detours away from God's plan when we decide we must go our own way!  The principle truth for us is that we are so far on the opposite pole from God at the start that whenever we pull a do-it-your-self, we end up much farther from good than we anticipated.  The warning ought to read, "Just when you thought that you were not depraved, check your worthless crystal ball again!"  Down, Down, down we all go into the darkness without His absolute direction.  Falling from His grace means that we have been deceived into the belief that we can devise plans that are close enough to God's plans to still be acceptable and good for our lives.  Well, Holy Moses, we end up heading to Spain, when we should be in Iraq.  Incidentally, the two countries are nothing alike!  Again, sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that we have come up with a very pleasant alternative to God's plan; we think that we know an equally brilliant way to conduct our lives.  Wrong!! Wrong!! Wrong!! All the warning signs ought to make us take pause, but, No way!! We very seldom listen!!  The hard facts about disobeying something that is completely perfect for you is the fact that you begin to follow something that is completely imperfect for you in every possible way.  Please think twice before you begin to plan and to fix your life with your own powerful thoughts.  Truly, you might end up in a very big ship wreck! Moreover, you might end up swallowed up by a huge, smelly, dark and dreary Whale! First step is to distrust the Savior! Second step is to run from the Savior's plan, and the Third step is: Shamoo!!

Read Jeremiah 29:11