Good day to everybody and the election results were no surprise but God is in control! ” A rough start ” Is the title of our devotion today and instead of a scripture it is the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah starts off with God calling Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah heads towards Tarshish which means pleasure. We know the story; a great storm came and caused everybody around Jonah to be miserable, until finally he was thrown into the ocean and swallowed up by a fish. And this is not just a fish story because Jesus quotes this story in the Gospel of Matthew 12:40-41. Like Jonah, Many of us get off to a rough start and head in the wrong direction. We run towards pleasure, anything that will please our fleshly desires. And usually at some point we end up in a place that is miserable just like Jonah in the belly of that fish, we will be miserable.
What brought Jonah out of the fish’s belly? A prayer, a prayer of repentance and when Jonah prayed that prayer he ended up on dry land and doing God’s will. Do you want to do God’s will? Because once we begin to do God’s will we will find the peace that surpasses all understanding and the joy that only comes from being in the presence of the Lord. We can chase after pleasure until we become numb or we can stop drop and pray and have a blessed life, the choice is up to you! Have a wonderful blessed day and always remember that Jesus loves you!