Waiting

My time in Italy allowed for multiple opportunities to make significant progress with my book pile. One book provided an in-depth look at the story of Jonah to expose the relentless pursuit of God for His rebellious children as well as the hearts of those rebellious children.

One chapter looked at Jonah’s anger at the repentance of the people of Nineveh. Towards the end of the chapter, the scope changed to look at how God works despite the motives and efforts of His people. The Bible reminds us over and over again of how God judges the heart while we focus on what’s outside. To be fully obedient to God our hearts need to be behind our actions. We can be physically obedient while having our hearts nowhere near God’s target. However, God’s power is still able to accomplish His purpose regardless. In Jonah’s case, God brought about repentance for an entire city even with Jonah’s reluctant and half-hearted efforts.

This spoke as a challenge to me because I am always aware of the motives behind my actions. I do not want to do anything for motives other than serving God and bringing Him glory (obviously easier said than done). However, sometimes I can be overly analytical about my own motives. I let them cripple me and my ability to move forward. Surprisingly this chapter had something to say about that too. It gave me a clear-cut response I had a hard time swallowing.

“If you’re waiting to make a decision or to step forward in obedience to God’s guidance because you want to make sure your motives are perfectly pure-you’ll be waiting until you die.”

The digesting began during the trip, and now the nutrients need to rush through my bones.