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NASB | Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Jonah 1:3 But Jonah ran away to Tarshish to escape from the presence of the LORD [and his duty as His prophet]. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish [the most remote of the Phoenician trading cities]. So he paid the fare and went down into the ship to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the LORD. [Gen 4:16; Job 1:12; 2:7] |
Bible Question:
We know God has a plan for each of us. When He reveals His plan, and we choose another way, another choice in life and we turn away from his initial plan, ie. God says " you are to go to....", and we refuse to go, what do we do, what happens when we refuse and we know that by refusing we've chosen to bypass what could have been a life changing experience, or a complete life changing way of life, i.e. ministry etc. What happens when we step outside of His Will, His plan that He laid out for us? In 1997, God told me to go to another country. I refused to go. I now live outside of God's original plan for me and feel I've completely missed out. My life could have been so different if I'd have listened to HIm and obeyed. |
Bible Answer: Dear Gillyhaz - In 1833 a young man, having come to a turning point in his spiritual life, sat on the deck of a ship and wrote a poem which was later set to music. The young man was John Henry Newman and his poem became the beloved hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." Here is the second stanza of that hymn: "I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on. I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, pride ruled my will: remember not past years." ....... Some 18 centuries before Newman wrote his poem, a zealous Pharisee from Tarsus was bent on wiping Christians off the face of the earth. Years later this man, Saul of Tarsus, became known as Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ. He may well have had his deeds as persecutor of Jesus Christ and His church in mind when he wrote, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13,14). ....... A thousand or so years before the time of Paul, a king in Jerusalem lamented, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Wearily he had searched for happiness in human wisdom and found it not; in wealth and found it unfulfilling; in pleasure and found it empty and ephermeal. This disillusioned man, this king named Sololmon, had it all yet had nothing. "Vanity of vanities" he said over and over, "all is vanity." At long last his "mid-life crisis" led him back to his senses, back to his roots, back to God. He summed it all up on these well-known words, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man" (Ecclestiastes 12:13). ...... Solomon's father, King David, did not always live within the will of God by any means. He committed adultery with the wife of one of his soldiers, then had the soldier slain. David paid the heavy price of bloodguiltiness for his sins, as his penitence in Psalm 51 clearly shows. He laments that his sin is ever before him and asks God to purge him with hyssop, to wash him so that he shall be whiter than snow, to restore unto him the joy of salvation. ....... If you had been a bystander at the time of Jesus' arrest and trial, and had heard a man in the crowd deny ever having anything to do with the accused -- deny it, in fact, three times -- you would never expect to read these words with which this turn-coat opened one of his epistles a few years later: "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1). ...... These men -- Paul, Solomon, David, Peter -- had all at some point in their lives "stepped outside the will of God" -- to borrow your phrase. So also have most of us. But the Bible's message rings clear: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). And having been forgiven and cleansed, we should join with Paul in "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before." ....... I doubt that you have "completely missed out." Trust in God and pray that He will yet use you as an instrument to His glory. --Hank |