The book & story of Jonah, the prophet has been a recurrent theme in my life ever since I was called to be a international missionary. I accepted the call my senior year of high school, after I was extremely running from God, head first into a relationship. It wasn’t a “bad” or destructive relationship, but it was comfortable. It was what I wanted. It was what I felt like I needed. It made me feel safe and loved. But it was completely and utterly against God’s will. I was running from His arms and into the arms of the boy. Not good. So, just a few weeks after God spoke to me and said, “Come back to me, my beloved,” myself (as well as the boy I had just broken up with) went to a conference known as Kaleo. It means “called” in Greek (apparently…I’ve recently learned a different word for called). Well, it is for people who feel called to ministry. So, I went, and went to a lot of different breakout sessions. But the last main session was when it really clicked. I’m called. The next day, Sunday, I went forward in my home church and told my pastor and my whole church. It was great.
Go back to beginning of senior year. I was running away from God while I visited colleges, thinking I was getting a degree in Music Ed, and was gonna be a high school choir director. The whole Monday, during the day, I sat in on a choir class, and talked with people about what I wanted to do. I was so sure. HA! That night, I went to Vision. Of course it would be missions night. We sang two songs I had never heard before: “You Said” by Shane and Shane and “Your Love is Strong” by Jon Foreman. Awesome songs. Then the speaker got up (the previous BSU Director). And he spoke on Jonah. He said some really radical stuff that I had never heard before. I cried during the last song. God changed my major. To Christian studies.
I hadn’t really looked at it again since. But we went through it over two weeks in my Pinelake small group. Wow. We just dug into it and found out a bunch of stuff. And that’s what I want to share, the next time I blog (Friday, I hope). All the wonderfulness that is the book of Jonah. I’m pretty much just gonna type up all my notes. See picture below. Haha. Oh, and that’s just one Bible. See the other picture below. 😀
