Quite unusual to remember dreams, yet NOT unusual to have a vivid dream, one that woke me up. I dreamt for some reason that I was a new professor going to give a lecture, on PHYSICS, wow, like high-school level or college, yet the kids were little kids and the fellow professors came too, to evaluate me. Weird. The lecture hall was humongous and old and lots of noisy stuff was going on, like people were wandering in and out. And then I shut the doors and started the lesson energetically. The lesson was to be about potential energy. And?

Well, I started in a way to grab attention in the chaos, started with a light hearted comedic routine, a conversation about someone having potential… They could potentially do this or that… And I was just about to grab my transparencies and start the lecture officially, talking about potential energy, when I woke up.

HMMM…

Isn’t that the truth? When we wake up, we put our personal potential energy and potentially EVERYTHING we have to use.

What will we do today???!!! The potential is endless.

This interestingly, does relate to the next chapter as I’m reading and writing through the Old Testament – and what a blessing to stumble upon an old favorite – Jonah – and to get new INSIGHTS (and I don’t just mean looking from inside the whale).

INSIGHT IS FOUND LOOKING INSIDE YOUR LIFE, HEART, and HOPE in relation to these scriptures.

And the Lord, day to day, has insight into our own motivation, and fear, and that is where we start with Jonah, his fear. The Lord wanted him to go to a place he didn’t want to go and do the work of the Lord that he didn’t want to do, even so much to tell the people on the ship that he was running away from God. We do know that we can’t run away from the Lord. And He will remind us to count upon Him.

I have a friend who’s always saying that she’s gonna go to H.E. double toothpicks and not to Heaven. And that does pertain to Jonah, because the Lord does want us to be with Him, shepherded so much that we don’t get there by our works, only by His pull, His whale of a plan. Christmas-time is also perfect for discussing HOW the Lord came into the world for His mission, a mission to SAVE. Jesus accepted and fulfilled the mission, because the Lord does NOT want us to go to H.E. double toothpicks. Jesus came to the world to free us from the whale of woe, and bring us to Heaven. And that is our potential EVERYTHING, Jesus leading the way.

There’s lots of exciting things in the story of Jonah and there are movies and books and whales of tales (and tails). Jonah, even though he was a prophet, did not want to go preach at Ninevah, the city that was corrupt and scary. He jumped on the boat in the other direction and the storm raised by the Lord made the whole ship fearful. Here’s the part that I somehow breezed over in all my many readings of these chapters, (thus the reason to reread and get new insights), the sailors cast lots to identify Jonah as the cause. Cast Lots! The Lord surely stacked the deck against Jonah hiding, the Lord has the potential EVERYTHING to make ANYTHING go His Way, from lots (chance tickets) to storms, to people, to evil itself all working towards the purposes of the Lord. 

Potential Everything… for Jonah, God got him to fess up, jump overboard to save the ship, get swallowed up in a whale for protection and direction and contemplation, because God knew He wanted Jonah for this job.

Potential Everything… for us to!!! God wants us to participate in the basics to the extravagant to the everything, in life. First the basic: BELIEVE. Next the potential: LISTEN. And of course the EVERYTHING: FOLLOW God’s Lead.

Jonah teaches that God will give us the motivation-moving whale too! Jonah shows that our faith will IMPACT other’s faith. Our willingness to BELIEVE and LISTEN and FOLLOW IS the Bible teaching that our lives can demonstrate. Don’t need to let others cast lots to find you, be BOLD in your potential energy to SHINE the Light, and then keep moving.

And apologize too for missteps – we are all prone to them – hopefully they don’t rock the boat too much. Jonah apologized, and made the proper correction at that point. And if we are in a storm, we need to cling to the Lord for calming it.

Well, lots of potential EVERYTHING to learn from the story of Jonah.

May we all see the light for when the whale’s mouth opens and spits us out into today’s POTENTIAL EVERYTHING adventure. 

Amen

—

Jonah 1

Jonah Flees From the Lord

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. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)

The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

Jonah’s Prayer

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

(TO BE CONTINUED…   )