“He prayed to the LORD and said, “Oh, LORD, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish! – because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment.”
Jonah 4:2 NET
This is the story of Jonah, a man who God wanted to go to Nineveh and prophecy. This scripture occured after Jonah was spit up by the fish and he had just finished prophesying at Nineveh. The people, upon hearing God's word, repented and God spared them. Unfortunately Jonah didn't like the outcome, in fact he was quite furious and got angry with God because he didn't get the result he was expecting. We read this and shake our heads....but don't we do the same thing? Don't we pray for God to help us, or help that person, or help our situation, and when we get a result that is different than the one we were expecting, we get angry with God? God sees the big picture, we only see what is right around us, probably not more than the few feet we can see. We've got to realize that when we pray about something, God is going to answer in the way He is going to answer, with an answer that has the best result. When we pray, we have got to take our self-centered life and perspective out of the equation, and we've got to open our hearts and our minds to whatever and however God is going to answer...KNOWING that He is going to give us the best answer possible!
Take Away: when you go to God in prayer, don't go already having an outcome you can picture in your mind...but open your heart and mind to however God is going to answer!
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