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Writer's pictureDeborah

A Consuming Fire



Deuteronomy 4:24 ESV

Hebrews 12:29 ESV

Jonah 1:2-3 ESV

Jonah 1:8 ESV

Jonah 1:9-10 ESV

Jonah 1:15 ESV

Jonah 1:17 ESV

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

From the Jar


One thing I’m certain of is that “our God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29).


Another think I am certain of is that God always seems to surprise me. Just when I think I know exactly how God is going to solve a problem, everything changes.


In the end, my expectations of what God will do fall short of what God actually does.


That reminds me of a time when I moved to an unexpected place.


I did not want to go there. As a matter of fact, I even told God I would not move there.


I meant it.


I wasn’t kidding and God knew it.


The day after I made that claim and promise began one of the most difficult trials I faced. Please understand that even though I didn’t wake up covered in festering boils, I was more miserable than I’d ever been in my life.


I felt like I was boxed into a small space.


I was having trouble breathing.


While I am not claustrophobic, I felt like I was surrounded by darkness.


I stayed there for three days. While I was in that supposedly imaginary place I could not pray. Every time I tried to pray I forgot or couldn’t think of what to say.


It was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced.


I finally after three days I could no longer stand it.


I told God, “I’ll do whatever You want me to do!”


Then, God lifted the darkness and made it so I could breathe. I felt the walls go down!


When that happened I realized a little bit about what Jonah experienced in the belly of the whale.


We learn in Jonah 1:2-3 that God told the Prophet Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

God told Jonah to go…and Jonah ran in the other direction.


He hopped on a slow boat to Tarshish. Then the Lord brought a great wind on the sea and by process of elimination the crew figured out their passenger who was asleep below must have brought the evil upon them. Since they didn’t really know him, they went to him and asked, Jonah 1:8, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”

Now, Jonah was in a real ‘spot’ and in Jonah 1:9-10, “he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.”

At that, the sailors were terrified but they really didn’t want to throw the prophet overboard. The sea roared on and on and they were afraid the ship would sink. Eventually they realized they had no choice. In Jonah 1:15 they, “picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.”


Once they threw Jonah into the sea we read in Jonah 1:17, “the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”


I remembered the story of Jonah and I realized I had been running away from God.

I told God I would go where He commanded.


And go I did.

I have to say it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done, but while I lived there I had the opportunity to be editor of a county newspaper which gave me great writing and interviewing experience. I was also given the ‘opportunity’ to be their only photographer and I learned to use a great Nikon camera. What’s really remarkable is that 23 years ago I learned how to use a Macintosh computer. At the end of my ‘stay’ in that place I went to the University of Missouri, Columbia and I finished my bachelor’s degree that I started 20 years earlier.


As a final blessing, my daughter met and grew up with the man she would marry.


I was truly blessed! But, oh how I fought it…


After living there for ten years I am reminded of the words in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”


God knew exactly what I needed. It wasn’t what I wanted, but in His great mercy, God…an all consuming fire burned up my stubborn pride so that He could bless me and give me what He had for me!


Today’s Spiritual Practice is: Say Yes!


Open your hands and say yes to what God has for you!


In God, Deborah


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