He Wants YOU!

This weekend, Jon and I will be helping with his dad's church and being leaders for a youth thing called Disciple Now. Looking over the lesson plans, I was struck by how much the first lesson tied into the Esther study the ladies at my church have been doing. The lessons this weekend are about the story of Jonah. Lesson one focuses on the aspect that God calls us to do a task and passionately pursues us when we run away. He doesn't give up or let us go. One of the questions (a rather minor one compared to the others) is, Do you think God would have sent someone else or was Jonah Nineveh’s only chance? I was fascinated by this question because of what I recently read in Esther 4:14: "If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?" 

Unfortunately, God doesn't need us. He is in no way dependent on us. God needs no one. However, he wants us so much he was willing to send his son to die on the cross for us. He wants us specifically to live a special destiny and fulfill a certain purpose. He was willing to argue with Moses until his slow-to-anger attitude became angry. He was willing to chase Jonah in the opposite direction and deliver him into the belly of a huge fish. He loves us enough to passionately pursue us until we obey him. We are not easily replaceable in his mind. As the Uncle Sam sign reads: I want you!

Something about that just gives me butterflies. God wants me, and no one else, to do a special task designed for me alone. He promises to continue his work in me until it is finished (Phil 1:6). 

So, now I have choices. I can either obey immediately, hesitate as Esther did, argue as Moses did, or run away as Jonah did. In the end, I'll obey God's direction, so why bother with the delays? Because sometimes God's will is for me to do something I think is crazy, irrational and/or scary. Sometimes he tells me to do the opposite of what I want to do. In the end, when I do obey (even while grumbling), I always feel wonderful afterward. You know the feeling when you've just completed a hard job? It's better than that! A hundred times better!! The best way I can describe it is joy mixed with peace mixed with healthy pride.

So what's God asking you to do? He asked me to shovel my driveway (it took 4 hrs), so we could be ready to leave tomorrow morning and see my dad in Matthews, Mo and help Jon's dad's church out. I admit, I was a little peeved at my hubby when he made the decision to help this weekend without a full discussion after we got the facts. I personally wanted to stay home and relax. I know God will do great things through me this weekend, though, so now I'm excited.  Oh, and he told me to write this blog although I was hoping to somehow excuse myself from it. After all, I'm on vacation this week. =)

Pray for the eighth-grade girls I'll be co-leading and the eighth-grade boys Jon will be leading. Pray that we'll both be empty vessels filled only by the Holy Spirit. 

P.S. Forgive the weird fonts. Even when I select all and select a font/size, it refuses to make everything consistent.