What Are You Getting Out Of Life?

I was reading the story of Jonah again this past week and some amazing things hit me. Think about the real story not the cool guy gets swallowed by a whale and lives to tell it part, but the story, especially in chapter 3 and 4. If you read it, Jonah finally does what God tells him to do and goes into this huge city and tells them that they are losers, that they are bad people, that they need to repent, and guess what the people respond! They repent, they change their lives. According to some reports 150,000 people lived in the city and repented and God used Jonah to help change 150,000 people and what did Jonah do -- he had a pity party -- he was mad at God for sparing 150,000 lives and he yelled at God and then he went outside the city to watch and see if God would change his mind and still send fire and brimstone to smoke them and he got even more ticked off when God didn't do that.

Sometimes we are the same way in our lives. We have tons of good things going on in our lives, we have some awesome experiences, but one thing doesn't go OUR way and we get all ticked off. We get mad because we think our way is BETTER than God's way and if He would just do it our way then life would be better. If we are honest with ourselves we do that a lot. We overlook the good stuff and focus on how our lives could be better if only God would listen or only if things were better for US!

Spend some time thinking about the good stuff in your life -- be careful not to get bitter about the stuff you wish you could change.