DAILY DEVO...living as fish bait

Have you ever been somewhere where you feel absolutely uncomfortable? Perhaps, even today, you find yourself somewhere and you wonder how in the world did you get there. I can only imagine the things that went thru Jonah's head while inside the belly of that fish...

"Am I ever going to get out of here?"

"What did I do to deserve this?"

I suppose those are similar questions that we even ask God.

A few years ago, my husband and I prayed about a difficult decision that we needed to make and the result was that we ended up resigning our position in full time ministry. After many years of being content and settled, we knew in our heart it was time to start a new chapter.

So, we stepped out in faith and trusted God to lead us where He needed us to be. We had no other job lined up, no security to fall back on; we just had God.

Surely, God had a plan. And He did. For the next year and a half, He had us wait upon Him. It felt like we were inside the belly of a fish.

I mean really ... Jonah was a fast learner, he was spit out in just three days! Not us, we were settled in for over a year!

During that time that we were fish bait, I kept asking God those questions..."How long God?" "What do you need us to learn?"

Truth be told, I learned ALOT while in that uncomfortable belly of the fish, here's just a few...

1. God was preparing us "for such a time as this." I couldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for the storm behind us.
2. Everything happens in God's time, not anyone else's. Nothing that we went thru was a surprise to Him!
3. Sometimes it's better to wait. If we hadn't waited upon Him, who knows where we'd be today; not just physically but spiritually.
4. Eventually, God would deliver us from the fish! Like Jonah, we were not ever forgotten, we were just in transition; getting our direction figured out.

Being fish bait isn't always a bad thing. It may be inconvenient, but like Jonah, we can now say what an exciting adventure we had while waiting for God to show us the way.

You can run from God, but you will never be able to hide from Him or His plan. (Read the story of the big fish in the book of Jonah).