Jonah 1:9 – 10 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the 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.)
I have about forty billion cousins. First cousins, even.
Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight. With eight in my mother’s family and seven in my dad’s, let’s just say there was always somebody to talk to at the family gatherings.
On one such occasion, when I was a teenager, I walked down an old dirt road with a distant cousin. This cousin didn’t share my belief in an Almighty God, but he was respectful. We simply talked of other things.
Eventually, the conversation led to my fourteen-year-old vanity, complaining about my hair and and my nose and so on. Who knows what drives fourteen-year-old girls to lament those things, but that’s another topic for another day. The thing I remember most about that conversation is my cousin stopping in the road and saying, “I thought you were a Christian.”
I was taken aback. I couldn’t connect the dots or follow his thought pattern. “I am a Christian,” I told him.
“Then why do you care so much about the way you look? If you’re a Christian, aren’t you supposed to be more concerned about what you look like on the inside?”
For shame.
Sometimes, those who don’t even serve God can see Him more clearly than we who claim a relationship with Him. Sometimes, we get caught up in how we want things to be, how we think things are supposed to be, and we lose our focus. No wonder so many people in the world think that Christianity is lame.
Jonah’s shipmates asked him, “What have you done?” Those heathen men could see what Jonah was almost flippant about. You don’t mess with the One True God.
It makes me sad to think that some might look at my life and say, “I thought you were a Christian,” or even, “What have you done, rebelling against your God?”
I pray that I will have eyes that see clearly past the haze of religious expectations and selfish desires to the bigger picture. I serve the Almighty God.
Dear Father, I pray that my actions will always reflect reverence for You, never flippant disregard.
Amen
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