Discontinued Ambition

Daily Reading: Jonah 2-4

Jonah 4:4 “Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?”

God asks funny questions. I just have to wonder if Jonah heard the sarcasm in His voice when God asked him this. Do you really think you should be angry? I can totally see Jonah pouting and taking his ball and bat and sitting in the bleachers to wait for the game to break up. Surely God wasn’t going to let these people get away with the way they’ve acted. Surely God wasn’t going to make him look like a fool. After all he’d been through and now God wasn’t coming through on His end of the deal. Even from the booth he made for himself which must have given him a good view of the city his only perspective was from narrow vision. Narrow and prideful was his mind, as he waited for Nineveh to reap it’s reward. But God gave mercy instead of destruction and Jonah acted the part of the prodigal’s brother.

Once again I am reminded that a calling does not require that I know all the details or the avenue that God wishes to work. It only requires my obedience. Do now what I know to do and allow God to work in any way He chooses. I can rejoice in any outcome if I am focused on pleasing God and not myself. I can rejoice whether my obedience led me into fire or flood. I can rejoice whether my obedience leads me into peaceful valleys where no one but God sees me being obedient, or onto peaks of excitement where I am cheered on by hosts of saints. It is not the how…that should drive me to obedience, it is the Who!

Oh, bless the Lord, ye saints and praise Him in His holy temple. I want to get to the point where I discontinue all ambition save the glory of a glimpse of Christ.