Arrangements

Okay, so I didn't put the laptop up last night as planned and this morning I am compelled to sit and write for a few minutes before spending this last autumn day in the mountains. For the joy of the big picture of how much better I will feel and my prayer for the trickle down from this surgery is, I will feel less stress on my heart. Sometimes it is difficult to perceive the source, is it knees or heart that causes me consternation when I am out and about doing things. It is probably a combo thing and I am hoping with the rehabbing of my knees I will be able to work on functional fitness and feel stability and strength while traversing this beautiful land.

So the Ninevites keep coming to mind from last week's lesson in Jonah. Well, not so much them as God's mercy and timing. Brenda and I were talking about the lesson at lunch yesterday and in my Bible translation, the NLT, the word arranged is used multiple times. And it is used in reference to God, God arranged a great fish, God arranged for a leafy plant, God arranged for a worm, God arranged a scorching east wind.... Those words, God Arranged became as beloved to me as reading But God....  As per usual, the 2:00-3:00 am window of waking up and answering nature's call, went right on schedule last night or rather early this morning. I was so concentrating on not thinking about what I had to take care of today to finish up the to do list, that my mind was kind of like a blank canvas. As my head found my cool, soft pillow a thought plowed through the blank canvas I was trying to preserve and the thought was, look how easy it was for God to arrange but just how stressful, futile, time consuming, and chaotic it was when Jonah and then the ship crew tried to "arrange" life and the desired end result. Nothing....nothing came of it that is good, just frustration, confusion and hopelessness. Even in the arranging Jonah knew...the cause, he was the cause...  We are wont to try our hand at the future and timing of days but when God arranges...well, now, that is surely going to be the way. Even Jonah, the angry prophet, found rest under that shade until things didn't go the way he wanted it to. God arranged for the big fish but when it was time to let Jonah go to do His work, God ordered the fish to spit Jonah out on the beach.

This thought gave me great peace for the coming days. I can look at many times where God arranged...for my life....God arranged for Roy's life....God arranged for friends and family lives, and sometimes when I questioned the arrangement from God, I have always seen and known it was for His Good Pleasure. Like Jonah after being rescued I can get upset with the change in plans...Jonah did what God told him to do and then he saw that God wasn't going to destroy Ninevah but have mercy on the people because they repented and turned to the Lord.

You know I don't use Monablog to teach Bible studies or use it as a platform. Usually I don't just come right out and share things like this until I have meditated on it and given it time, but today, I felt compelled to write this, to give hope to someone who might need to know that God has everything arranged for you, stop trying to control circumstances that throws you into chaos. Rest in obedience and don't take the detour of the adventure of the "big fish." OK, now I am laughing because it seems like churches are a little too concerned about appearances these days....look the part, dress the part, be skinny, use lights and smoke in the service part, and all the presentation stuff we can get wrapped up in...and Jonah, probably didn't look the part when he went to Nineveh. Been in a big fish for three days has to be a tad rank...but then maybe his appearance, although not right in people's perceptions, was just the right arrangement from God to get the people's attention and then their response to repent and turn to the Lord. Nothing like some good old seaweed to complete the outfit or arrangement of the Lord.