Wednesday Devotion: Clarifying our messes

Jonah 2:5 "The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head."

The guy next to me on the plane leaned over as I worked and jokingly said, "You should really learn to write better."

Yes, my notes were a mess to interpret after the course I took. I told him how in one job, my cursive notes were so unintelligible that I would take them to my colleague, Theresa, who could somehow read my poor writing as plain as a simple font printout. What a skill she had! And what a mess I made that she had to clarify.

The prophet Jonah made a huge mess of his assignment to prophesy to Nineveh. We learn so much about Jonah's mistakes and God's triumph in the four power-packed chapters of Jonah. But perhaps we overlook the lowest moment, when Jonah prays after being thrown from a ship into the sea and into the mouth of a great fish.

When you have seaweed wrapped around your head inside a fish, you have certainly found yourself in a mess of your own making. But God clarified and fixed the mess for Jonah. God spared Jonah then gave him clear instructions in Jonah 3: 2: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

That wasn't an earthshaking clarification; it's pretty much what God told Jonah to do in the first place. But Jonah messed it up. How much do we mess up God's intentions for us? How much do we try to wiggle out of God's assignments, end up in worse shape, and ultimately cry out to God for rescue?

Thanks be to the God who clarifies our messes, gives us second chances, and keeps reminding us to do the right thing.

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