A little bit of Jonah for your day

Happy Friday!

Any post on a Friday, serious or not, deserves to start with that greeting. Am I right? 

It's been a jam packed week. There's been coffee dates, dinner dates, serious convos, not-so-serious convos, work outs, manicures (okay, just one). A little bit of everything. 

And it's been good, great even. But you know what there hasn't been a lot of? Me and Jesus time. I love starting and ending my days with the Lord, and even that didn't happen every day this week.

I'm starting to realize just how much Jesus time I need. I think the more on mission you get, the more alone time with the Lord you need. Because the fact of the matter is, you just can't be on mission without Christ. 

And guess what? We are all on mission. It doesn't matter if you're gearing up for a mission trip to Uganda, or if you're being on mission right in your home or in your workplace, 

if you love Jesus Christ then you are on mission for Him!

So if you don't feel like you're on mission, allow me to welcome you to the team. You are! You've been commissioned by Him the moment you surrendered your life to Him. And He is using you! Even if you don't feel it.

So as I come to a close this week, I am feeling the effect of my serious lack of Jesus time. I might not be showing it on the outside, but my inside is swimming with frustration and insecurity and selfishness. And those things, well they keep me from loving people the way that I want to, don't they? 

I prayed last night, asked God to fill me with His Spirit so that I would be able to pour out His love, but I woke up this morning still gripping those frustrations. Holding onto them for dear life, as if I could do something about them. 

But the fact is, I can't and I don't want to! I want to show the love of Christ. I want to help people feel valued and cared about. So those frustrations that root from, well, probably this, I want to surrender those to the Lord. Because I can't accomplish what I want to accomplish while holding onto them.

I walked out to my car to take a little breather. I scrolled through the Bible app on my phone, and randomly came to Jonah 2, where Jonah is praying from inside the whale. He is calling out to the Lord, confessing that He needs Him. That He's sinking beneath the waves (literally).

He prays for 9 verses, proclaiming out to God. And then, verse 10, so simple and so powerful. And so revealing of how our God works:

Then, the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach. 

  Boom. Just like that, our God was faithful to respond. Isn't He always working like that? Hearing our cries and rescuing us from whatever it is that we're facing? Whether it's the biggest issue we will ever face in our entire life, or simply a case of a frustrated heart.  

The Lord is faithful to respond.

So consider me freshly spit out of the fish, ready to have a good weekend. 

I hope you have one too! :)