Turning from Tarshish

04/09/21 – 04/20/21

God’s Prompting

By Michael Youssef, Ph D.  04/11/21

Has God ever given you a task that created a sense of panic or dread in your heart? Maybe He was calling you to lead a small group in your home. Or perhaps there was a specific person in your life who needed to hear the Gospel. Instead of rejoicing in this responsibility, you avoided it.

We often claim that we want God to use us, but in reality, we mean this only on our terms. Our words loudly profess, “Here I am, Lord. Use me however You want.” But our hearts whisper, “Lord, I want to serve You, but only if it means working on this project or serving in that location. I definitely don’t want to witness to this particular person or to that particular group.”

No Biblical example better reflects this attitude than Jonah. In this book of Scripture, we see a man who had served God faithfully in the past but resisted God’s call when it became less comfortable. “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish” (Jonah 1:1-3).

Prayer: God, help me to respond in obedience to Your prompting. Forgive me for the times I have avoided those promptings and, like Jonah, have run the other direction. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).