I notice patterns. I also see common denominators. I can’t help it. It’s the way I am made. I think I could have that disorder: Denoterns. Anyway, perhaps many others have it as well, but I have noticed several times in the Bible where it took three days to change someone, or something.
Take Jonah. God gave him direct instructions to go to Nineveh and share whatever message God told him to. I think Jonah took it upon himself to judge the people there, and he boarded a ship going the opposite direction. Perhaps his heart was full of hurt he associated with the people there and he wanted God to wipe them off the map. You can read the whole story for yourself in the book of Jonah in the Bible, but after he was thrown overboard and spending three days in the stomach of a great fish, his heart changed.
Three days!
There are many other instances whether they journeyed, stayed or not ate for three days. Three days can seem like eternity when you are hungry, thirsty, hurting, or desperate for an answer from God.
Jesus in the tomb is probably the most famous story of a three day ordeal in the Bible, but after his third day, anyone in the world can have their wrong doing forgiven, just by accepting Jesus.
On a personal note, three days after my wife gave up on hoping, asking, and believing God to send her a husband I sent her a message. On the fourth day, her life changed. It seems as if it takes three days to work out the flesh. In other words, it takes that long to realize that when your situation changes it wasn’t you, but had to be God.
I don’t like going through a three day ordeal, but I hang on, because I love the fourth day.
If you are going through something, and you have turned it over to God, realizing you can’t do anything about it otherwise, then know this; your forth day is coming!
CONFESSION: I made up the disorder Denoterns.
Copyright © 2020 Mark Brady. All rights reserved.
Jobs have disappeared,
My neighbor, across the street, is taking down his own tree, as you can see in the photo. I looked out the window and commented, “That tree looks naked.” I laughed, but then realized it will no longer serve its purpose. The tree’s beauty will no longer be admired. The shade, the tree once provided, the comfort, will no longer be there.
You finally drop off to sleep, and when you wake up the next morning you have a few seconds of peace before the pain of your current life situation comes crashing back into your mind like a tsunami. You lay there and say to yourself, “Oh yeah”. You force yourself to get out of bed, but if it wasn’t for having to go to the bathroom you would more likely pull the covers over your head and try to go back to sleep.
If you have tried everything, does that list include Jesus?
On a recent trip to the Philippines, I saw a lot of life I had never seen before. I experienced several new things as food, phrases, and culture. One thing that I couldn’t help but notice was the local rival to McDonalds, Jollibee. It has what McDonalds has as well a local favorite, chicken with rice and gravy.
A young woman had been praying for a man of God for years. She had cried out, “God do you not care?” Not seeing any positive movement via the dating site she had joined, she decided to close her account. Three days later she received a message from an interested man. Love blossomed.
Would you recognize LOVE if you saw it? Are you sure?
brady, mark a. 