Get Somewhere

Many of our Gospel music friends will be travelling tonight and tomorrow toward the natural wonder that is the Smoky Mountains.  Specifically, to the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for the National Quartet Convention.  The A-Team will join you later in the week.  I made it a goal of my young life to Get There someday and I did. But, I was really supposed to be somewhere else.  Let’s talk about that.

Tim Riley used to have this saying when you were somewhere in the wrong place at the wrong time and mainly in his entire way.  It went something like this; think cruise ship horn, bull elephant and tuba… “Get SomeWHERE!”  When the shockwave hit you there was no thought of what to do. Your body just got somewhere else till your brain could figure out where you ended up but you were definitely somewhere else.

Jonah was a man that God wanted to go somewhere (Jonah 1:1-3).  Jonah, however had no intentions of going there.  He had his own set of reasons, rationale and running that would take him as far away as possible from where he was supposed to be.  It took quite a bit of harrowing life experience for Jonah to come around (read chapter 1).  Then in chapter 2 Jonah came to where he thought God’s idea was a great one.  The Word of God came through the Man of God and an entire regime and region came unto repentance and avoided destruction (read chapter 3).  Jonah had to get somewhere that God could use him in the way God wanted to use him.

It makes me think of an old black angus cow that I was helping my buddy, Ron Gilbert try to get into the right pasture after Irma blew through and got his herd all discombobulated.  She had gotten separated from her calf in a separate pasture and was highly agitated.  That ole mama cow did not know that all we were trying to do was get her somewhere that she would be much happier and doing what she was supposed to do with the cows she was supposed to be with.  She was having nothing of it.  She thought she knew where she was going and she sure didn’t need any of our kind of help.  Finally, Ron said, “Eh, just leave her in here. She’ll either figure it out or she can just stay in here but I’m not chasing her any more today.”  

Isn’t just like the children of God sometimes.  We have it in our mind that we know what is best, where will be best and when it will be best but usually we end up running back and forth against a fence that separates us from where we are really supposed to be.  If we would only allow the shepherd to show us the right gate to walk through we would be much better off.  Get Somewhere that God wants you to be or where you thought you wanted to be might just end up feeling like the belly of a whale, cramped, uncomfortable and separated from the security of His perfect will.

I pray this often: “Lord, let your will be done through me and not in spite of me.”

God Bless You!

BroAdamB