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How To Repent
Brian Mashburn
October 21, 2018
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How And Why God Answers Prayer
I gave you two assignments last week.
One is for you to find a place that is not yours with a people group that are not like you, and go. Experience it. Feel what you feel and think what you think when you are around people not like you. This is intended as exercise for you. How will we be faithful in moving "Beyond Us, Beyond Here" without getting uncomfortable? Do it. Then report back about your experience at jonah.southwest.org. Ideas are there, too.
Your other assignment is to read the book of Jonah, preferably several times, and slowly, allowing God to interact through it with you. If you have done this, you read what we will be looking at today in chapter 2.
Jonah's prayer.
To recap, Jonah received a call from God. Jonah disobeyed, which spiraled him downward into darkness, despair, and the feeling of certain death. Jonah's extreme rebellion was equaled by God's extreme pursuit and salvation, landing him in the famous belly of the fish.
It was here that Jonah prayed.
I want us to see today, from Jonah''s prayer, that God answers his children when they cry to him in distress. Then I want us to see today, not only that God answers, but how God answers. Then, perhaps most importantly, I want us to see why God answers.
You either have been, are, or will be in distress. The tragic story of Jonah, if nothing else, can coach us on how and why to approach God at such times, and fill us with hope in the most dire of circumstances.
Hope. It is what we need, and what we offer, as we go about our lives, and into this world.