13 September 2005 Devotion for Today "When God Gets Your Attention" Jonah 1:1

13 September 2005  Devotion for Today  “When God Gets Your Attention” Jonah 1:1

            We get people’s attention in many ways. We may blast our car horn to get someone’s attention. Some people can whistle loud enough to get someone’s attention. At the airport, passengers are constantly flagging down taxi cabs by waving their hands. And certainly, we all can remember those teachers who raised their voice to get our attention.
The result is obvious: when someone is trying to get your attention, they know it and they are going to do what they can to make sure that you know it.
            But, I wonder if it is that obvious when God is trying to get our attention. God knows that He is trying to get our attention and many times we don’t know the signs or worse yet sometimes we ignore them.  I wonder is this what happened in New Orleans and along our Gulf Coast -God trying to get our attention?  I also happen to believe that God was trying to get our attention on September 11, 2001.  People come to church during times like these, stay a little while, get busy, and then life returns to normal.  I’m going to be gracious and say it could be that we don’t know the signs that God is trying to get our attention rather than saying that we are blatantly ignoring them. So today, I want us to know the signs when God is trying to get our attention

            We know when God is getting our attention when we can see God’s guiding hand of  sovereignty –His ultimate control. Read verse 1. “And the Lord came to Jonah.” Why did God go to Jonah?  Because God can go to whomever He wants.  He is God, Creator of the Universe who doesn’t need man’s approval to break in unannounced in our lives.  He is Sovereign, and we exist for Him- not He for us.

             In reflecting upon the events of the past couple of weeks, I have to stop and think about the questions that are asked.  They cannot be ignored.  How could a loving God allow this disaster to happen? How could a loving God allow so many to suffer?  Especially when we prayed the Sunday before the hurricane hit, “Lord protect these people,” yet by all estimates at least 20,000 people are dead.  450,000 have lost their homes.  By the same token, on the morning of September 11, 2001- I wonder how many of us prayed as we started out the day, “Lord, watch over me and my family today” as we prayed in our quiet times.  I know I did.  I also prayed for my country.   My prayer started out like just about every other day.  Why is it that God spared me yet 3000 lives were taken that day?  Was it because my prayer was better than theirs or heard above theirs?  No.

            We can’t account for the evil that others will do, nor can we understand fully the extent of God’s creative work that goes into a massive hurricane and floodwaters that destroyed the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts.  But there is also another factor that we ought to look at more seriously that most people casually ignore and that is: America has stopped trusting God.  Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Lotz gave the answer in an interview to Jane Clayson on the Early show. “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government, and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman he is, I believe he has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us his blessing and his protection if we demand he leave us alone? 
            It seems like we want God’s protection without His powerful presence. We want God’s provision without His controlling hand. How can we demand anything of God when we have so willfully shut Him out? 

            This devotional is continued tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

 

Rev. Jeffery C. Russell
Salem Baptist Church
Elizabeth City, NC
jefferyrussell@earthlink.net

 

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