by Sandy Kirby Quandt

In Priscilla Shirer’s book, Awaken, she asks the question in one of her devotions, “What’s your Nineveh?” She goes further and asks, “Where’s the place you never want to go?”

We’ve heard the story of Jonah and his outright refusal to take God’s message of repentance to the barbaric people in the terrifying city of Nineveh. Who could blame him? He knew what they did to people they didn’t like. Especially people who were Israelites and followed the One True God. And it wasn’t pleasant or pretty.

We know Jonah ran away, boarded a ship, was tossed overboard, swallowed by a large fish, spit out on dry land, and proceeded to Nineveh like God originally told him.

We know the Ninevites repented, and Jonah pouted.

Back to Priscilla’s devotion.

She asks us to look at the places or people where God is calling us to go. Those Ninevites, if you will, who we don’t really feel comfortable around. Those people with a reputation for being pretty rough. The ones who are nothing like us at all.

She says if we want to see God’s harvest, then we need to say yes to his call and go to our Nineveh. Priscilla says to say no “is to invite the chaotic distress and confusion that put Jonah in the belly of a great fish.”

How easy it is to say, “Where you lead me I will follow. Where you send me I will go.” And we truly mean it. We do. Putting feet to those words, however, requires something more. It requires action.

What’s your Nineveh? Are you willing to go, or like Jonah will you run?

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But the very first day when Jonah entered the city and began to preach, the people repented. Jonah shouted to the crowds that gathered around him, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” And they believed him and declared a fast; from the king on down, everyone put on sackcloth—the rough, coarse garments worn at times of mourning. Jonah 3:4-5 (TLB)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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