Change the world

W hen my wife and I toured the Vatican City in Rome and the Louvre Museum in Paris, we were awed by the many tapestries, hundreds of years old, delicate, intricate, and beautiful.

Reading the Bible is like viewing a beautiful tapestry – consisting multi-colored threads of wool, silk, and fine metallic threads. One of many threads that run throughout the Bible is God’s ability to use all that happens in our lives to help us become more like His Son, Jesus Christ.

All that happens to you has already been sifted through the hands of God. He is not caught off guard or unaware – and His promise is that everything that happens to us He can turn for good (Romans 8:28), this promise is a thread that runs through each of our lives.

We have expectations for our lives but God uses, what I have termed, altercations to get our attention. These altercations can, if we allow, help us to become more like Jesus.

We have our expectations but God has His altercations. God sometimes must use drastic interruptions and altercations to get us back into a right relationship with Him. For example, there is Jonah.

Jonah was a preacher, a prophet – one who spoke for God. God instructed Jonah to travel to a distant city and preach to the citizens. But Jonah ignored God and tried desperately to get as far away from God, just as we try.

Jonah boarded a ship and sailed in the opposite direction of where God told him to go. While sleeping in the hold of the ship – God caused a storm to develop – the sailors did all they could to save the ship and themselves. The sailors woke Jonah and immediately Jonah knew what the problem was. He told the sailors, the only way they would survive the storm would be to throw him overboard. The sailors resisted this idea at first, but the storm worsened and soon they threw Jonah overboard in hopes of saving their own lives – which they did.

Why did Jonah resist the directive from God to go to Nineveh and preach?

Because Jonah knew God is great in mercy and grace and would indeed save the people of Nineveh. Jonah did not want the people saved. The Ninevites were a warring people, who showed no mercy and were arch enemies of Jews.

I may not know what you expect in your life but I do know that your life will be interrupted with altercations with God. These altercations are God’s attempt to get your attention off yourself and onto Him. God desires to have a relationship with you. Jonah had an altercation with God in the sea. Jonah changed his mind and went to Nineveh and because of his preaching the entire city repented of their sin and were saved (Jonah chapters 3 & 4).

God is using our current events to get our attention.

Does God have your attention?

This is our problem in America, we are not listening to God. I also have this problem – not listening to God. Are you listening to God?

Instead of listening and obeying God, we are distracted by our circumstances, our fears loom large, chaos has replaced law and order, and it is as Jesus said, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).

Be it a virus like Covid19, Monkey pox, social unrest, wars, famine, elections, court decisions or something else, the real issue is, does God have your attention?

God is saying, as only He can, “Your Attention Please.” If we do not respond, God will soon demand our attention. This is another thread that runs through every book of the Bible – When God wants our attention, He has ways of getting our attention.

Clayton P. Adams, West Memphis, AR email: claytonpadamslll@gmail. com.

Clayton Adams