Jonah: Establishing an Obedient Heart
/During a morning walk with Deb Molder around her neighborhood about four years ago, I was opening up to her about some of my insecurities. She simply told me to start praying “God, help me fear you, not men.” This statement has been a consistent prayer in my life since, and it seems to sum up in a few words what God has been saying to me through Brandon’s recent series on Jonah. I am learning to trust God at his word and his Spirit’s prompting, reckoning his will better than my own. Instead of drawing nigh to God in his struggle, Jonah tried to flee from him and from the people he was being called to. He chose to disobey because he did not fear God and was esteeming his own will above God’s.
“...when we repent, God is quick to forgive.”
As I was reflecting on Jonah and the series Brandon was preaching in C&YA, I quickly noticed how my actions matched Jonahs. I have known for years that God has been calling me to start a Bible study at my workplace, but I had endless excuses and justifications for why I shouldn’t or couldn’t do it. The reality was that I wasn’t fearing God and wasn’t believing that he really could do that through me.
In one of Brandon’s sermons, he asked something along the lines of, “Do you believe that, regardless of your weakness, God wants to use you?” On that Sunday, with the Bible study on my mind, I knew my answer was no. I knew, without a doubt, that I had not been believing God for what I knew he had called me to do. The awesome thing is that when we repent, God is quick to forgive. After the sermon, I prayed with a couple of my friends asking for forgiveness and committing the work to God, trusting him to use me despite my foolishness and weaknesses.
Since that Sunday, a friend and I have started the Bible study at our workplace, and we’ve already gotten to see God’s blessing in it. We keep laughing at how simple it was all along. All we had to do was pick a time and place, meet there, open our Bibles together, and invite people in as we go. I had been trying to figure out all the details ahead of time while putting God in a box. Again, all he truly wanted me to do was take the next step forward with an obedient heart.
“God doesn’t ask me to have false confidence in my abilities.”
I’m learning to focus on God and his strength, instead of on me and my weakness. It’s important to recognize and acknowledge my weaknesses. This is only important if it leads to greater desperation and dependence on the Lord instead of a downward, crippling spiral of self-deprecation and anxiety. My fears have everything to do with my thought life. Brandon acknowledged this in another one of his sermons on Jonah: “We get stuck in sinful ways of thinking and we feel trapped. The way out is always getting to know Jesus more.” So, the way out of my fears is not focusing on my fears and the things that lead to them; instead, it’s in surrendering my fears, getting to know the one who takes them, and then moving forward in obedience. My weaknesses don’t surprise God. He knows them well and delights in using me in any way so that he gets all the glory out of my life.
The final point that Brandon made that resonated with me was when he said, “A life of meaning and purpose begins with learning how to agree with God even when it’s hard.” I don’t have to wait until I’ve overcome my fear to obey him‒that’s not how it works. The only way that I will overcome my fears is through obedience. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.” I can’t expect to feel ready and God doesn’t ask me to have false confidence in my abilities. He just asks me to trust him and obey him. When I see the fruit of trusting the Lord, it increases my faith and makes me want to trust him for more. God is teaching me the same simple concepts he was teaching me when I first chose to follow him, but this is just a new season with different specific circumstances and people.
“I would rather live aligned with the will of the Creator”
In the end, there truly is only one opinion that matters: if Jesus is my Lord, I want to actually live like it. Life is too short to disobey God and have broken fellowship and intimacy with him. I would rather look stupid to my peers and have a Father in Heaven who is pleased with my life than the other way around. I would rather live aligned with the will of the Creator of the universe, King of kings, and Lord of lords than with anyone else.
Julie Sidebottom is a discipler and small group leader in Midtown Baptist Temple’s College and Young Adults ministry. She serves at the Connections Counter in main service and C&YA hospitality.