Obey Without Delay

The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” Jonah 1:1-2 NLT

When your children are very small, they are always eager to do things around the house. If you are making the beds, they want to help; if you are working in the garden, they want to help. If you are not careful they will uproot all your flowers thinking that they are helping you pull weeds. As they get older, they are not as eager to do the things they did before. You can assign a task and that task might not get done in the time frame you set.

Sometimes, as people of faith, God assigns us a task. Here, Jonah was assigned a specific task. God told him where to go; what to do and why he needed to do it. Now as a prophet, that is your job and when God sends you on a mission, you just go. Jonah, however, was not about to do that today. We have no idea how he responded to God’s directions on his previous assignments, , this response was different. “But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. verse 3.

If Jonah was your child and he was so blatantly disobedient, what would you do? God, the creator of the universe, was not pleased with Jonah’s response. God didn’t ask Jonah if he would like to go down to Nineveh; or if he felt like doing it on that today? David understood the importance of God’s commands, he said in Psalm 119:60, “I will hurry, without delay, to obey your commands.” God has no tolerance for the disobedient. “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” James 4:17

Jonah experienced hardship as a result of his disobedience. He was thrown into the raging sea and found himself in the belly of a fish. There, he surrendered to the will of God. In the end, Jonah went to Nineveh and did as God directed. When God calls you to a task, it’s better to just do it. Like Jonah, you might run but you cannot hide from God’s call.

Thought for Today: Friend, when God calls, obey.

Have a blessed day and walk in faith and victory.