Sharing is Caring

Thanksgiving in suffering         “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish, …   But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving That which I have vowed I will pay Salvation is from the LORD” (Jonah 2:1, 9).                         Suffering is painful and distressful.   And when we are in pain and distress, we usually groan in wounds and tears.   We even make a grudge.   We blame others.   We have to blame somebody for it.   We blame a situation too, not just the people.   We blame the people and the situation, but we do not blame ourselves.   The reason is that if we are so painful and distressful, we tend to become more selfish.   And if we are selfish, we will not only able to think that suffering has come because of ourselves, but we cannot.   That’s why we cannot...

  Day 29: Jonah 2:3-4, 8-10       Even so, I will look to the Lord again.   We tend to resist the difficult realities given to us, often expressing it through complaints and resentment.  However, if we can find God's blessings even in the midst of accepting those challenging realities, we can truly say that person is a blessed believer.  Jonah the prophet is considered to be one of such individuals.  The reality he faced was that he was on the verge of life and death physically, and spiritually, he felt cast away from God, experiencing the weariness of soul.   However, even in such circumstances, Jonah resolved, "Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple" (Jonah 2:4), looking to the Creator God, who is greater than "the deep" and its "billows" (v. 3).   Through this, he came to realize the grace God bestowed upon him (v. 8), and he was reaffirmed in his calling as a worshiper (v. 9).  He was reborn not as...