“Where’s your Nineveh? Where’s the place you never want to go?”

These are questions Priscilla Shirer asks in her book, Awaken.

We’ve heard the story of Jonah and his outright refusal to take God’s message of repentance to the barbaric Assyrians in the terrifying capital city of Nineveh. Who could blame him? Jonah knew what the Assyrians 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, and spit out on dry land before he proceeded to Nineveh like God originally told him.

We know the Ninevites repented and Jonah pouted.

In 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. We need to 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.”

It is to say, “Where you lead me, God, I will follow. Where you send me I will go.” However, putting feet to those words, requires something more than words. It requires action.

Where’s your Nineveh? Who are your Assyrians? Where do you feel God is calling you to go?

After you answer those questions, 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)

You can find my December Inspire a Fire post here. Please stop by and read it.

I wish you well.

Sandy

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