What is God doing in the world today?

 

Dear friends,

 

Those who know God enough know that God is dealing with each and every one of us at the same time and not only with China, Italy, New York, and New Orleans.

 

Make no mistake my friend, God is able to court and to marry every one of us at the same time by luring each one of us into the desert and there speaking and conquering our hearts and persuading us with his grace and love separating us from one another by a distance long enough to have unhindered intimacy.

 

What the world needs today is the prophetic voice of men like Jonah, who though rebellious and disobedient learned obedience himself through discipline. Then in repentance he spoke powerfully the Gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of Sin to a great city of the world.

 

A prophet is an ordinary man doing an extraordinary job teaching lessons of grace that he has learned by firsthand experience in the Holy of Hollies. Sometimes the Holy of Hollies is the belly of a fish, the belly of an airplane, a bus, a train or a car. The theology of Crisis is a much needed truth that everyone needs to ponder in such a time as these.

 

God uses effectively times of crisis more than times of quietness to bring his own unto himself.

My grandma as she took me to the “Woodshed” would say, “On one hand I have love but on my other hand I have rigor. I love you so much to not let you go unpunished for your transgressions, one day you will thank me.”

 

It took a three-day journey to go through Nineveh. It was not a pleasure for Jonah to preach to these deplorable people that to him represented the pain of slavery that his people suffered under their heavy hand.

 

Allow me to speculate a little about the frame of mind of Jonah, the reluctant preaching prophet. I know this by personal experience having been a missionary in an enemy country and because there is a lot of Jonah in me.

 

To go preach to a difficult people is not easy. Nothing discourages a preacher more than the lack of response to his message. To say the least “It is very embarrassing” and bad for the ego but very good for humility.

 

On the other hand, after Jonah got the job done, he sits on the top of a hill to watch the destruction of the wicked city, which never come to pass. 

 

All of a sudden, a new form of embarrassment possesses the prophet due to the fact that his desire and that his prediction of destruction after 40 day of “quarantine” did not happened.

 

Jonah in his mind is feeling like a firstclass fool. The people of Nineveh are so happy with the new found faith in the God of Jonah, but Jonah gets up from his front seat and throws his binocular and his face blushed in shame as he misinterpreted the happiness of the people of Nineveh as laughter about him. 

 

In his anger he uses theology against God to neglect his duty. Then in his Post Traumatic Syndrome he wished to die. God patiently reasons with Jonah and bring him to his senses. Thus, the Book of Jonah starts and ends with God talking to Jonah.

 

But isn’t the Book of Jonah about Nineveh? Or is the book of Jonah about the group of merchants in a boat that pray to God for their lives? Or is the Book of Jonah about a great fish that swallowed Jonah and spit him out into dry ground?

Or is the book of Jonah about a king that passed an edict to fast and pray to God? Perhaps the book of Jonah is about an obedient worm that ate the vine?

Perhaps it is the history of the livestock spared by God?

You might even think of Mrs. Jonah and their kids back home?

 

My point is that the book of Jonah in not either-or but both-and.

God deals with one and all at the same time because he is a sovereign God. Multitasking for him is a walk in the park. As someone said, “Circumstances do not make a person but only reveal a person.” We all have been exposed and revealed in our nakedness, our fears, and limitations though the pandemic.

 

The old remedy still is the same; believe, pray and fast in repentance and seek the hand of God moving away from greater harm. “God resists the proud but he is gracious with the humble.” Make promises in the day of trouble and keep your word given. God cannot be mocked. What a man sows that he will reap.

 

God is dealing with you and with me at the same time because he is God and he can do it. Our God is so great that he is able to keep a monogamist relationship with every one of us without committing the sin of adultery because God is above the Law. You are loved my friend and I encourage you to rest in his everlasting arms.

 

What is God doing in the world today? Once again, he is bringing the world to its knees. The right place for the king and his people is on his knees before God. 

In a more romantic way, God seen to be saying, “Forget me not.” “Do this in remembrance of me.” “Remember your creator now.”

 

This was the matchmaker of Jesus on duty.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.