Turned upside down and right side up just like Jonah...

Jonah and I have so much in common. We are called to places we did not want to go, we can both be prideful, and we both need to let the grace of God fill our lives in a way that it shines out to others.

The past three weeks have been amazing, and broken all at the same time. About a year ago I started praying about going to Marysville, OH with my old college pastor and his wife to plant a church. At the time we were studying the book of Jonah, and I continued to pray about it, as my heart became religious the Lord broke me over and over with the book of Jonah. However, once I was built back up I was still praying about Ohio. As I began to pray the Lord started revealing what I thought about the church to me. I began to search scripture for the scriptural church. Through this the Lord used Ohio. However, here in the mean time I was skipping church a lot because I needed to reconcile with my current college minister. He and I had stubbornly butted heads a few times. As I prayed for two years about this the Lord began to work. Last week at 2:30 in the morning my current college minister called me and addressed everything that I had been praying for for two years. As I am still praying about where to go, I see the light a little more. I was praying about what to do after graduation at least for the next year and I received a message from a couple, who both are friends, that just recently got married. They began to tell me how their heart was to plant a church in the Memphis area in which it could be Biblical and reach out to the lost. This church was going to be structure much like the church I wanted to move to in Ohio. As I pray more about it I am still seeking the Lord, but see the Lord's calling to Memphis just a little while longer. As I seek him, I see he is graceful and forgiving and faithful more than we ever deserve.

I AM CONSTANTLY HUMBLED BY HIS GRACE.

Memphis and Ninevah have several things in common just as Jonah and I do. Ninevah was called an "exceedingly great city" and it was also called very wicked for crime, and many other things. Memphis is now the largest city in Tennessee with population rising. Memphis has one of the highest infant mortality rates in Tennessee, along with very high crime rates. So what did the Lord call Jonah to do in Ninevah?

Jonah 1:
2"Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me."

Jonah 3:
1Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2"Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you."
3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk.
4Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
5Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

8"But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.
9"Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish."
10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

(Do you see the power in following the Holy Spirit rather than our own selfish desires? THEN THE PEOPLE OF NINEVEH BELIEVED IN GOD.. THEN GOD SAW THIER DEEDS, THAT THEY TURNED FROM THEIR WICKED WAY, THEN GOD RELENTED CONCERNING THE CALAMITY WHICH HE HAD DECLARED...)

Acts 1:8 (New American Standard Bible)

8but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

Praise God that he has grace enough to call a sinner like me to repentance, but PRAISE HIM even more that he calls a sinner like me to call other people to see He is calling them to repent!

His grace is sufficient!!!