I was sitting at The Well, a Christian ministry on campus. James, the speaker, said, “Some of you need to go on a mission trip, like next semester. It’s what God wants you to do.” I leaned over to my friend Sam and said, “Hey, that’s what I’m doing!” He replied, “Is this what God wants you to do or are you being Jonah?”
What he was really telling me was, “Is this what God is calling you to do or are you running away from your problems like Jonah did in the Bible?” I was taken back by this question, but it was the hard truth that I needed to hear.
I recently went through a break up, and as petty as that is, it broke me, completely. I lost my friend of 8 years. I lost a family that means so much to me. I began to feel that I was losing my Christian community that I had built at college.
“You are not made for rejection. You are accepted by God.”
This is something I have heard a million times throughout my life, but when my leader, Steph told me this as I cried on her shoulder over what seemed like one bad thing after the other, it meant something new to me. I am not made for what I have been through, I am not made to be defeated. I am a CONQUEROR through Christ! I am made to love and be loved by someone that sees me as worthy, that sees me the way Jesus sees me; perfect and beautiful in every way.
So, am I being Jonah? After I got broken up with, I decided to run as far as I possibly could, so I looked up “long term mission trips” and found this trip to Thailand. I can’t get much further from Tennessee, so I prayed about it and applied. Long story short, I got accepted and God provided all my funds, and here I am in Korat, Thailand writing a blog about how God brought me here. But it is because of the will of God that I am here.
So I am both. I am running away but I believe that in my running, my anger and frustration, God will show up more than ever before, like He did for Jonah.
“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”- Isaiah 58:11
Cling to the one that at the end of the day won’t say, “I have to let you go.” He is there, every step of the way, holding your hand. Carrying you when you don’t have the strength to go on and that’s okay, let him. It is because of Him you will get through this.
He is for you not against you.
