Encounter Christian Campus Ministry Daily Devotions 2020

April 20 by Ptr. Grant Amasi

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

Scripture: Book of Jonah Ch. 1&2

God often pull us out of our comfort zones either to grow, to wake us up, or perhaps to show a better way for us. This home quarantine indeed, brought us out of our comfort zones; Which is a bit ironic because staying in our homes should automatically be our comfort zones. But if think about your life before the quarantine began, perhaps months or several weeks before. We were free, free to go anywhere if we had the means to, free to eat and hangout at our favorite restaurants or cafes, basically free to go out any time of the day. I bet most of us felt more comfortable before compared to our situation today.

For today's devotion, I want us to look at the life of the prophet Jonah. I'm positive that all of us have heard about his story. I believe that he was comfortably living his life when all of the sudden, God called him for a mission. A mission he considered unreasonable and had no intention of obeying.

He disobeyed, he fled. But God did not give up on him. He tried to run, but God pointed Him to the right direction.

Given our current situation, do we feel like God is being unreasonable, like how Jonah felt when he received the mission? Has God pulled us away from our comfort zones? Things haven't been easy lately, it's actually rough and scary. Most are anxious about the situation.

When Jonah was pulled out of his comfort zone, everything went south on him, but he did learned a few things.
First, that God is in total control.
Second, he realized his mistakes and prayed to God for forgiveness.
Third, he learned obedience.

Jonah's mission was to inform the people of Nineveh of their doom because of sin. He disobeyed so God made a way and gave him some quiet time to realize his mistakes. He was "quarantined" inside that great fish. Just like Jonah, we've had it rough. We can say that in this quarantine, God has given us time to think, to re-think and to realize what we've been doing so far.

Think about the past several weeks, what have we learned about ourselves? What have we learned about our personal mission? What have we learned about our faith? What have we learned about God's wishes in our life?
And lastly, have we considered that maybe God is giving us the opportunity and time to identify and reach out to the Ninevites of our life.

Let us not waste the opportunity when God gives the opportunity to grow and learn and take action.

Let's ask ourselves again: In this quarantine; what have I learned so far?