According to Webster’s Dictionary sleep is a condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended: at ease in Zion catnapping!

I was meditating upon the LORD, and he said, “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake, this great tempest is upon you,” (Jonah 1:12 KJV)

Many times we wonder, “Why?” Why LORD, have the waves come? Why has the storm come?

Why does it seem as though I am being defeated on every hand, but if we would stop, think and listen to ourselves we would not be deceived by the answer the LORD is saying unto us?

Jonah knew the answer. He just did not care. He was too busy sleeping, relaxing on vacation doing his own thing! But, God had a big fish waiting for him to stop him in his tracks!

Sometimes it is the big fish that causes us to self examine ourselves and to rethink what we are doing and the road we are on and the paths we are taking! Before, we can wake up out out of our our deep sleep!

Sometimes God has to bring chastisement and words of corrections and even rebuke in order to help us come out of our constant day dreaming and relaxed state of mind!

You see, whenever we get on the wrong path and the wrong road it does not just affect us but those around us; as well. Just as it did those men on the ship with Jonah!

“These men rowed hard to bring the ship to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Even though they were highly trained in running a ship these where not your normal kinds of winds blowing and coming against the ship! The men quickly discerned that something was wrong and began to assess and to evaluate why was all this trouble coming upon them. Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, ( they cast lots and the lot fail upon Jonah) and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee,” Jonah 1:13-14 KJV.

It is a terrible thing to fall in the hands of an angry God! For, He is a God that is patient, compassionate and full of mercy!

And, it is not his will that anyone of us should perish, but Jonah didn’t just fall short of the glory of God, he purposefully ran from the presence of the LORD, because he wanted nothing to do with the plans God had in mind for him!

And, not only that but he went down in the ship and went to sleep as though he did not have a care in the world!

Jonah rejected God! He was a selfish prophet and all he cared about was what he wanted.

He didn’t care if the people on board the ship could have been destroyed and neither did he have regards for his own life.

You see, sin blinds us and it gives us wrong insight and makes one feel as though they have more knowledge than the Creator!

Jonah was not even void of understanding or of knowledge when it came to what God wanted from him, because he told the people on the ship he was disobedient to God out of his own mouth he testified!

And he said unto them, “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”

I believe the LORD is saying that the waves are blowing hard in the lives of many in this season, because they have taken a ship to go where God has not released them to go!

It is a terrible thing to be on the run from God. When Jesus had need of the colt he told the disciples disciples.

“Go to the village ahead of you,” He told them, “and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt beside her. Untie them and bring them to Me,” Matthew 21:2.

How many of you know today, that in order to bring TRUE glory to God, that sometimes we have to be willing to do some unusual things?

Jonah was not willing to step out on faith and to trust God for the plans he had for him; instead he ran and took the easy way out!

But, i believe that God is saying that we must arise out of sleep. And, we have to be obedient to His voice, even if it doesn’t make sense.

We have to be obedient, even when we can’t understand His reasoning. Obedience to God brings Him GLORY.

Instead; Jonah brought shame he was no better than the people God was sending him to bring judgment to.

If we want God to be glorified in us and in our church sometimes that means doing things that are out of the ordinary.

Jonah was proud, stubborn, disobedient, unfaithful, a grumbler, and altogether a bad-tempered, cantankerous old man.

And, it was this same pride that caused him to think that he knew more than God! Jonah did not want to obey God, because he felt God was a merciful God, slow to anger and he would forgive Nineveh no matter what they had done.

I’m sure he felt he could also escape the wrath of God, but God had to show Jonah a different side to him, one that revealed to him that God is no respecter of persons! (Jonah 4:2).

Jonah as a prophet, got to see what Nineveh did not, the wrath of the all mighty God!

Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD , (he woke up) and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

THEN I SAID, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple, (Jonah 2:1-4 KJV)

It was not until Jonah was put in waves of hell that he realized that god meant serious business with those he warns, chastise and rebukes!

He had to understand (firsthand) that the Face of God has many temperaments and God being slow to anger, compassionate and merciful, was just one side that was based upon His Grace and His unmerited Favor and His Mercy!

God’s request don’t come to us because He is a good God, or because He is a God who is weird; although that is apart of it.

For example, He told the disciples to loose a donkey that he didn’t own or had paid for; but, because He is an omnipresent and omniscient God, he already knew before he sent the disciples what the outcome would be.

Just as Jonah had said earlier, he is a merciful God.

However; he asks us to do certain things because he requires faith and obedience from those whom he calls and he chooses.

He doesn’t tell us to look into a fish’s mouth for a coin, because He’s strange. And, neither does he use mud (spit) in the eyes of a blind man, because he is a strange God.

He uses the UNUSUAL to get OUR ATTENTION.

But, he uses uncommon commands, things, even the impossibilities of life to BUILD OUR FAITH.

It’s one of those things to make us say within ourselves, “THAT HAD TO BE GOD.

There’s no other possibility. There is nothing else it could possibly be!”

“Obedience is better than a sacrifice and rebellion is as sin and as witchcraft! Arise O sleeper, we must work the works of him that sent us, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work,” John 9:4.

 

~ Apostle Geraldine Fisher

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Apostle Geraldine Fisher has a World-Wide-Social Media Net-Work Ministry. As a Missionary, God moved her into the Office of a Prophet, revealing to her the qualities of a True prophet, humility, humiliation, loving others, interceding in prayer, as she keeps her own life clean to accurately hear from God. Since hearing the audible voice of God calling her to ministry, she’s been called to intercede and pray for others in ministry as God speaks, instructs, directs and gives prophetic words for her to give to others. God promised He would bring her to sit and to learn before great men, all of which He did!

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