Category: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: Jonah 4:1-3

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“Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the Lord: ‘Please, Lord, isn’t this what I thought while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever gotten mad about something God did? That’s kind of an odd question, I’ll grant you, but think about it for a minute. Maybe God did something good for someone you deemed undeserving. Perhaps He allowed someone you love to go through a season of suffering or die. It could be that someone else didn’t get what you thought they deserved for something they had done. Whatever it was, there are times in our lives when we get mad at God. Jonah certainly was here. What do we do in these times?

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Digging in Deeper: Jonah 2:3-4

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“You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the current overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. But I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.’”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been in the midst of a mess and thought or said, “Why God?” That’s not an uncommon reaction to tough situations. Now, it could be simply that we are crying out like that because we genuinely don’t understand why things are happening like they are. But, in the midst of hard times we can’t easily explain, God is a convenient target for our accusations. This natural reaction is sort of what we see on Jonah’s lips here.

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Digging in Deeper: Jonah 1:17

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“The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever felt like you’ve had a rough day? Have you ever felt like everything is falling apart around you and the pieces keep getting smaller and smaller such that trying to put them back together is looking like an increasingly hopeless project? Whenever that depressing feeling is pressing in on you and despair is starting to take hold in your heart, tell yourself this one little things and feel better about your situation: At least I’m not sitting in the belly of a giant fish.

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Digging in Deeper: Luke 2:19

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**No post tomorrow. We’ll get back to our regular schedule on Thursday. Happy New Year!

“But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

How busy are you? Okay, how busy are you, really? If your family or simply your life is at all like mine, you have a tendency to schedule yourself to the point that you simply run from thing to thing to thing and never stop to breathe, much less think about any of them. While that’s an easy pattern to fall into, it isn’t one that will lead to flourishing in the long term. As we sit here in the limbo that is the days between Christmas and the New Year, let’s see if we can’t take a page out of Mary’s playbook and take it all in for a minute.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 1:23

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“See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated ‘God is with us.’”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

We love the idea of going on a quest. We may not necessarily want to go on one ourselves, but we love the idea. Every good story is based around some kind of a journey. We have to get somewhere in order to do something, overcoming some obstacles along the way. This concept pulses so deeply in our hearts that it lies at the root of our religion too. Every religion is about people going on a quest to obtain the blessing or the power or the presence of the divine. Every religion, that is, save one.

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