GETTING TO “YES” THE HARD WAY

Whom the Lord loves, He chastens.

HEBREWS 12:6

Until we are faced with the consequences of what we do wrong, we won’t even admit it to ourselves. We are the most marvelous people at rationalizing wrongdoing.

In our culture, absolutes are almost gone. We face a major problem in the church today with people doing what is absolutely wrong and thinking they have a good case for why it is not so bad. Until we face the penalty for our wrongdoing, we often won’t be honest with ourselves.

I think Jonah probably thought he had a good case for not being the right man for the Assyrian job until the gastric juices started working on him in the belly of the fish. Then he started to say, “Well, maybe I am the right man for the job after all.”

Some people think that this type of foxhole decision isn’t genuine. But just because we say yes to God under pressure doesn’t mean we aren’t being honest. It means we had to get to “yes” the hard way, but we got there all the same.