Floundering?

Lonely, cold, dark, damp and boy does it reek!

Back-sliden and lost, depressed, anti-social, bitter in thought and speech. Lethargic and we just want to sleep.

This is the slow dark cold spiral that

 leads to death that the enemy of our soul desires for us. first and  foremost it renders us ineffective for the Kingdom. We don't want to be around anyone and if we are our witness is lousy.

Jonah learned this lesson when he chose to ignore the calling of God, leave his post as a prophet and run away so that he did not have to confront those God wanted him to prophesy to. 

   Jonah, like us all, had a wrong perspective of God and wrong perspective of the lost. He did not see God's compassion for the lost and all he could see and hope for was God's judgement rather than His mercy and grace. He also seemed to have a wrong perspective about his own witness. He thought he could turn it off and on... but alas our witness is out there be it good or bad isn't it?

   It was a downward spiral for Jonah. Note that he went down to Joppa, down into the lower pars of the ship, down into the belly of the great fish. He purposed to get away from God. (as if that were possible) He lost communion with God and unable to hear His voice. Isn't that the way... It is not a matter of where did God go?... when it is us who moved away. 

   God had to speak to Jonah through the storm and  the heathen because Jonah had lost his power in prayer,even his desire to pray. He had lost all spiritual energy... all he wanted to do is sleep; and was able to do so even with all of the chaos of the storm and the crew around him.

 Depression does that doesn't it?

   God uses the heathen crew members to bring Jonah out of his funk. They put Jonah in the position of having to review his circumstance... after all it stemmed from disobedience and sin didn't it... and we don't sin in a vacuum... it always affects others. 

He has to admit who he is, What his occupation is (was), Why he was where he was and where he was supposed to be... and why God was thrashing the boat about. His witness was shot and he was responsible for the crew's peril. Jonah told them to throw him overboard and even that took some convincing... actually we notice the unbelievers praying and offering sacrifice to God and the servant of God... not.

   Once in the water Jonah still is not crying out to the Lord. So God sends Moby Dick or whomever to swallow up our hero. Jonah I'm sure thought this was the end for him yet it still took three days for him to come around to cry out to God. 

We get so wrapped up in our stuff sometimes. God is trying to get our attention...but NO!

Jonah 2 (NKJV)

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.

2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.

3 For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.

4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’

5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.

7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple.

8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy.

9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”

10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

It is necessary to have right conception and perception of God. That and the fact that I have to get over myself... I can't speak for you but usually when I am in a spiritual funk it is because my pride is stinking up the joint. Sure others get involved... they hurt me, or cheat me, or whatever but ultimately it gets down to selfish pride and where I am with Jesus.

So I'm sick of being whale puke and and my walk stinking of old anchovies... how 'bout you... maybe that's why my hairs turning white.... Lord I come to you crucifying the old man again. reckoning this old man dead... again.

Psalm 95 (NKJV)

1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods.

4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also.

5 The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:

8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness,

9 When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.

10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’

11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”