I just spent a good portion of an hour writing a blog post about how all these different things that I read today connected with one another in a most amazing God ordained way. Yet when I hit the "Publish Post" button I was taken out of Blogger and to the sign in page. When I checked back to see if my post had posted I was shocked to find that the whole thing was lost. Oy! Well I won't waste any tears over it. But I will give the gist of what I wrote.
Today I had some amazing connection between my Bible study and the book that I have been reading for the last three weeks, Life Interrupted. I was reading the last two chapters of Acts in my Women's Devotional Bible. The devotion at the last of Acts which I just happened to look at was the Amy Carmichael poem posted below. It caught my attention because of its words expressing how life is not always sunshine and roses. We go through times of pain and sadness and hurt. I can well identify with what Amy Carmichael is speaking of in the poem. I moved on to the beginning of Romans. Romans 1:16 is a well quoted verse. It says, " For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." (KJ21). After I finished my Bible study I posted the poem I had read on my blog and moved on to reading Life Interrupted. I had briefly looked through the link to Amy Carmichael's Wikipedia page that I had attached to the poem. On the page I had seen the names of Jim Elliot and Elisabeth Elliot as people who were influenced by Amy Carmichael's life as a missionary. But I didn't know who they were. I ventured into reading Chapter 12 of my book in which Priscilla was speaking as to how Jonah was given the task of going on the Great Commission just as we are in Matthew 28: 16-20. Jonah began his foray into the Great Commission centuries before ours was recorded in the New Testament but the purpose is still the same today as it was then. We are called to go out and seek and save the lost. Jonah was called to Nineveh specifically, and you might have a specific destination that God has called you to, to share the Gospel of Christ with people who are in need or are hurting. But as Priscilla points out in the chapter whether we have a specific assignment right now or not we are to let God's presence shine through us in every area of our lives and in everything that we do. We might need to exhibit God more in our attitude, in the way we treat strangers, in reaching out to co-workers or neighbors, or people that we meet just in living out or daily lives. We are to let our lives exhibit the presence of God at all times. Jonah, when he got to Nineveh, exhibited an evidence that he had been through something. He had just completed a 500 mile trek to Nineveh from Joppa and did that after having been expelled from the belly of a giant sea monster. The people of Nineveh most likely took stock that when he said that there was a countdown to destruction withing the next 40 days for them, that he meant it. Jonah had not wanted to go to Nineveh. He hated the Ninevites. He wanted to go as far away from them as he possibly could and he in fact tried to do so. But God helped him to see that there was a better purpose in what He had called him to do than what he thought would be the better route to take. Jonah simply needed to repent and obey. He needed to follow God's commands for him. When he did obey God assured him that he would be with him and help him to accomplish the task that he had called him to. When Jonah got to Nineveh, the people's hearts had been prepared by God through prior circumstances to receive the message Jonah had for them which God gave him. The book of Jonah says that the greatest to the least even the king and the animals all wore sackcloth and ashes to repent of their sins. Jonah's act of obedience led to the repentance of a whole city of people and their salvation from impending destruction. God used Jonah to do something completely supernatural.
I like how God didn't give up on Jonah. He gave him a second chance to do the right thing after rescuing him from doing the wrong things. So many times we think we have got the answers or the right plan or all the right things accounted for only to learn we were all wrong. God corrects us, puts us back on track, and helps us to follow after him to get to where we need to be. I love that about Him. I like that He cares too much to leave us where we are even though He loves us just the way we are.
As I was reading my chapter in Priscilla's book I came across the name Elisabeth Elliot. She was used as an example of someone who knew about letting God shine through her rather than trying to use her own personal characteristics or experiences illustrate God for others. Later on I found out that Elisabeth's first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed by a group of indigenous peoples in Ecuador while trying to bring the Gospel to them. He and four other men were killed and their bodies found in a river. Even though Elisabeth must have been heartbroken about what happened she stayed in Ecuador and she preached to the very group of people that had killed her husband, along with her young daughter and a female companion. I don't know about you but to me that says that she was not ashamed or dismayed. I'm sure that plenty of people would have taken those circumstances as signs to quit but she was undeterred to carry out the mission that she had been given.
I'm really thankful as well that today I learned about Amy Carmichael. I have seen her quotes and devotionals sprinkled throughout my devotional Bible but I never stopped to look up who she was. Who she was, was a women devoted to God and devoted to the people of India in Tamil Nadu. She rescued orphans and young girls who would have been given over to shrine prostitution if she had not stepped in and she also rescued those who had already been given to that lifestyle. She was an amazing woman. The fact that she traveled in parts of the world where few people let alone women traveled in the late 1800s and early 1900s is just remarkable to me but also indicative of the fact that God can use people in what seem to be the most unlikely of places.
The story of the Elliots and of Amy Carmichael, who was listed as an influencer of their decision to be missionaries, really was eye opening to me. It's one thing to look at the story of Jonah and see that God used him in an unconventional way but then to have examples from not that long ago as examples of the same thing is just really amazing and I am thankful for it.
God really does know what's best even when sometimes you feel like shouting out, "What are you doing to me?" I know I have felt that way on more than one occasion and I have wanted to ask the Lord to just stop and to just let me off the ride. I will take my cubicle job and my mundane normal life in exchange for giving up what is on the other side of all this. But God knows best. He knows that what's on the other side of all that I have experienced is more than worth the things that I have to go through to get there. It's not a life interruption, it's a divine intervention.
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