Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Jonah 3:3b-4

Leave a comment

“Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, ‘In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!’”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you google “not my job memes,” you will find some pretty funny images. Most of them are pictures of road striping work where the stripes go right over something in the path that could have been easily moved out of the way. It wasn’t the striper’s job to do it, so he didn’t. My favorite is a picture of a python that has wrapped itself around a terrified-looking young boy’s leg with the National Geographic logo in one corner and in the other corner you can see a National Geographic cameraman crouched and actively taking a picture of the scene rather than helping. Of course, the guy taking a picture of the guy taking the picture wasn’t helping either, so… In any event, what Jonah does here is worthy of a “Not My Job” award. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Jonah 3:1-3a

Leave a comment

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.’ Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the parenting books I read early on in this journey was Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Leman. Leman is a good writer and his sense of humor made it a fun read, but there was one idea that has really stuck with me over the years. The principle goes like this: B can’t happen until A does. The idea is that, if you’ve asked your kids to do something you want or need them to do (A), they can’t do whatever it is they might want to do (B) until they’ve accomplished A. We see a bit of this on the display in Jonah’s life right here.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Jonah 2:7

Leave a comment

“As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

There’s something about good things happening at the last second that inspires us. Bottom of the ninth home runs in baseball or buzzer beaters in basketball are the most exciting ways for a team to achieve victory. I think there’s a very good reason for this and we see a hint of it right here in Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Jonah 2:2

Leave a comment

“I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol; you heard my voice.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Are you the kind of person who calls for help before you break something or after it’s already shattered into pieces? It’s not just a matter of pride that determines how far you go into something you can’t do before you wave the help flag. Sometimes it’s a matter of information. For Jonah here, it was a simple matter of the fact that he didn’t have any other options. The question is, though, did he really mean it?

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Corinthians 1:28

Leave a comment

**This will be my last post this week. I hope you and your family have a very, Merry Christmas. May you know the full blessings that only the birth of our Savior can bring. See you Monday!

“God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world — what is viewed as nothing — to bring to nothing what is viewed as something,”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

We are wowed by power and prestige. We give deference to wealth. We assume that rich people are smarter and better informed about…well…everything than poor people. We expect more from people we deem powerful than those we don’t. We look to befriend people we think will give us some sort of social or vocational advantage. We do this because we make judgments based on what we can see. This works if some sort of worldly success is our goal. When it comes to the kingdom of God, though, all of this gets turned on its head.

Read the rest…