Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart." The take-away from last night's Bible study on Jonah is, as we learn to follow God more wholeheartedly, delighting in Him, God will change our desires to become His desires and therefore OUR heart's desire will be HIS desire.

When God gives us an interruption opportunity, we don't have a lot of options on how we will respond. He's giving us the opportunity to participate in His purpose and we can either obey or choose to disobey. Here's an interesting thought - most disobedience involves a simple choice to stay put. By choosing to do nothing, we are really making a decision to delay obedience - which is what ladies? Yes, delaying obedience is disobedience.

Another interesting thought, when we choose disobedience and run from God's opportunity, we are doing something very unusual - we are actually putting ourselves in the very spot of punishment. We find the people or the situation which is most subject to bad consequences and then we become part of the negative results. But God is patient with us, He doesn't stop loving us when we make a mess of things....in fact, He is really good at taking our messes and doing something good with them - like Jonah.

The question came up last night, did Jonah ever really obey God with a willing heart or did he grudgingly go through the motions? The book of Jonah concludes with Jonah being angry and depressed. It appears Jonah's attitude was never in the right place. I don't know the answer for sure but since Jonah was the author of this book of the Bible, He at some point had learned what God wanted and then was able to write this narrative (inspired by God of course) on this portion of his life.

Jonah is an example to us what I mentioned above - running from God actually puts us in the very spot of punishment. Jonah is also an example of how God can use our messes and make something good of them. Let me end with this - the Lord longs to be gracious to us, He may punish us for disobedience but He does not stop loving us......

Isaiah 30:18

"The LORD longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him."

Psalm 89:30-33

"If his sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgements, if they violate My statutes and do not keep My commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness."