Sunday Snippets- Jesus is Jonah

Hope you all had an amazing weekend!  This week at church we were in Jonah chapter 2.  At the very end of chapter 1 Jonah get swallowed by the big fish.  He spends 3 days in there before he asks God for help!  That seemed like a long time to me.  But thinking about it, I know I do the same thing in situations.  I'll give up hope or think I can fix it on my own sometimes or even be mad at God for the crappy situation I'm in and focus on other things instead of turning to Him.

Anyway, we mainly focused on Jonah's prayer to God during the sermon.  Here are some of the highlights from my notes:

- True repentance is like waking up from a dream. Your pride has been stripped away.  You see everything more clearly.

- If God strips away one of your idols and gives you a glimpse of how futile life is without Him before you die, that is His mercy!

- An idol is something you love, crave, or trust more than God.  (romance, money, career, kids, anything!)

- Jonah felt abandoned by God.  Was he? NO!

- God is after obedience that grows from desire.

- Jesus + Nothing= Everything...on the flip side...Everything - Jesus= Nothing

- Irreligious people don't think they need salvation from anything.

- Religious people know they need salvation but that it comes from themselves (something they are/do)

- True Christians know we need salvation and that it comes from God not from ourselves

- The Gospel is the only thing that gives you both humility and confidence at the same time.

- Jesus is Jonah because he went through what Jonah went through (in a way but way worse) for us.  He endured God's wake up call for us.

I will admit I shed a tear or two during this sermon at one point.

Back story- On Friday I had a little mental breakdown about yet again being the 3rd (or 13th or 21st) wheel on all the trips with my friends this year.  There are NO other single girls going on the two trips we've planned so I'm freaking out about who will I share a room with?  who will I ride with?  who will I split food with?  who will I ski with?  I honestly don't mind being single that much, but when it comes to trips and New Year's Eve (because of all the kissing.  I swear it's worse than Valentine's day.) it drives me to tears.  Well Friday I shed a lot of tears over it.

So at one point in the sermon, the pastor is trying to describe the relationship between God and His people.  There was some word that when translated meant something like "from the womb" and he apologized and said people without kids might not get it, but the thing it is most close to is the way a mother or father loves their child.  He said when he hears his kids crying...then he paused and said "well 9 times out of 10 they are crying over something that has nothing to do with reality...but those times they are really hurting or in pain, I would do ANYTHING...ANYTHING to make it go away.  And that is how God feels about you."

So automatically I am thinking about my breakdown on Friday and why won't God just let me find my husband so I won't have to cry about this crap anymore.  Why can't He just take away this pain??

But the more that I've thought about it over the weekend I'm starting to think that maybe this cry on Friday falls into one of those 9 times out of 10 cries that has nothing to do with reality.  I am hurting emotionally but over things that may not even matter and will probably work themselves out.  It had nothing to do with reality.  Only what I was worried about in my head. Yes, if I had a husband I would have a built-in partner for everything and would never have to worry about those things again.  But maybe I really shouldn't be worried about them in the first place.