On that day...

"Sinner man where you gonna run to?
Oh sinner man where you gonna run to?
Oh sinner man, where you gonna run to-o-o on that day
I ran to the sea. The sea was bleedin'.
I ran to the sea. The sea was bleedin'.
I ran to the sea. The sea was bleedin'.
Oh on that day."
- Nina Simone

I remember the summer of 1999. My pastor was praying for us as we returned to college, and he looked at me and said "God has placed his hands upon you." I believed that. But knowing and doing sometimes are two different things.

In the story of Jonah, we would always talk about how it's not possible to run from God. God told him to do something. Brotha was scared, so he thought he would just sail on away. One whale's stomach later and he figured out that that plan wasn't going to work out. Lol. Paul wrote later that neither "height nor depth, angels nor demons, things present nor things to come shall be able to separate us from the love of God."

Sometimes I feel like I've been through so much it's hard to trust the pulling of God. He gives us strengths and gifts that we can choose not to or choose to use. But it's often hard to decipher what exactly we should be using them for. It's even harder to know what our calling is sometimes. But sometimes we do know and we don't pay attention or we're scared so we pretend we don't hear God. That's when we end up in the whale's stomach. Not preaching, just speaking from experience. I ask God for direction, but he often doesn't yell, doesn't split the clouds. He forces us to listen for his whisper.

I pray for the faith to heed :)

M Dot