Today's Devotional

January 3, 2005

Subject:  Am I The Cause?

Jonah 1:5 - 7 "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.  So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.  And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah."

As we watched another matching of two bitter NFL rivals last weekend, it seemed all but concluded when a last second pass propelled one team, the one I was cheering for, to yet another victory over it's long-time nemesis.  It was the 14th win against this team in 15 tries.  When one of the opposing fans realized this, he said to me, how long  has it been since you returned from Japan to live in this area?  

What my friend was trying to do was make a correlation between my return to the area and the incredible losing streak that his team went on since.  While that was probably a really really long shot, there are some correlations to be made that we miss out on.  

That's what I think God was talking about when he said in Matthew 16:3  "...you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?"  See we can often search diligently to draw correlations on things that don't really matter that much, like if I'm the cause of a team going on a 7 year losing streak, but we often don't discern things like what God is doing in the world, in our families or even in our personal lives.  Those are the correlations He wants us to make.  The people on the boat with Jonah eventually realized that he was the cause of all of the fuss and Jonah realized it too. 

So while we're making correlations and as the new year dawn's and people begin to take inventory of where they are, we might want to ask, am I the cause?  Think about what God said today and let's not seek a sign, but discern the ones that He's already given us.  

Carlen