Rhemalogy

Part I

The other morning I was in the kitchen cooking when I cooked up an idea for this blog—No pun intended. In meditating on God’s word something came to me…The title of this blog post along with an analogy. I was reminded of how when Jonah disobeyed God it caused great distress to the mariners on the ship. (Jonah 1:1-9 NKJV) This distress turned to fear…and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But the more they threw over, the stronger the storm became. Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. (Jonah 1:10-13 NKJV)

Notice, that after Jonah told them how to alleviate the problem they kept trying to get to shore, but couldn’t. They could not get to their destination because Jonah was keeping them from it. As long as they tried to keep Jonah onboard that ship they could not get to their destination and the storm became greater.

So my question today is…What are you carrying on your ship of life that is keeping you from your destiny? In the mariner’s case, it was Jonah who had disobeyed God. For you is it fear, disobedience, procrastination, bad habits, rebellion, or unhealthy relationships? What is it that is truly keeping you from your destiny? This is a question that many of us need to seriously think about. Yours truly included. This writer will address the aforementioned starting with fear.

• Fear. The Bible teaches us For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV) Yet humanity has so many fears they’ve placed them in categories—everything from Achluophobia: Fear of darkness to Zoophobia: Fear of animals. Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Notice it is based on a belief, which is the root issue. So I guess my second question would be what do you believe? There are some 44 Bible verses referencing belief. The one that comes to mind is… And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NKJV)
• Disobedience. For it is written “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” ( I Samuel 15:22 NKJV) Had the mariners taken heed to Jonah’s advice in the first place they would’ve saved themselves a lot of trouble. Split-second disobedience can sometimes cause us a lifetime of trouble. This is where accountability comes in. If we’ve been given the right instructions and choose to disobey those instructions no matter how many modifications we try to make to fix that disobedience it will only take us further away from our destiny. Remember those wanderers in the wilderness for those forty years? (Hebrews 3:16-19 NKJV)
• Procrastination. Because of fear and unbelief, you may have put off writing the next bestseller or mega movie hit for fear of failure. But how do you know that if you never tried to begin with? The same goes for that position you’ve been desiring but you keep putting it off because you don’t think you’re good enough or you are too old. Could that be a figment of your imagination? Remember Gideon? Who thought he was the least in his father’s house who after working through some fear issues defeated a multitude of Midianites and Amalekites with just 300 men. (Judges 6:11-30 and 7 NKJV) Or when there was a heavenly host surrounding the prophet Elisha that his servant could not see? (2 Kings 6:14-17 NKJV) Which drives home the scripture What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 NKJV)

Thank you for your continued readership and support. Stay tuned for the conclusion next week. Until then…Blessings and Peace!

The definition of fear comes from the Oxford Dictionary.
The types of phobias were extracted from verywellmind.com.

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