The Keys to Your Miracle

Choices play a big part in our lives.    Good choices lead to a better life, bad choices can bring much sorrow and pain.    The Scriptures say that we reap what you sow.  People often say it this way, 'what goes around comes around.'    Bad choices can sometimes get us into such a mess that no matter what direction we go there just is no way out.    Jonah made some bad choices and ended up in the belly of a great fish.  The Bible says that God prepared a great fish to swallow him up.   Bad choices have a way of sending destruction our way and swallowing us up.  We get swallowed up by depression, by anger, by anxiety, by poverty and it is difficult to find our way back out.   There are times just like Jonah that when we are so far gone the wrong direction that no amount of human effort or planning could get us back on track.  When Jonah was swallowed by that big fish there was no plan, no human effort, no trying to work it out that was going to get him out of that situation.   What he needed was a miracle because this was a mess he couldn't get out of by himself.  

Jonah abandoned all inside that great fish and cried out to God but he went beyond prayer.  I have talked to many people that were in a mess.  And most of them are praying.  Jonah didn't just pray, get me out of this mess, Jonah repented and promised to obey God.    This is the first key to a miracle.  Repentance always precedes miracles.   After he repented God brought him out of his circumstances.
He had heard God to go preach in Nineveh  and that is the second key to a miracle.  You have to know what God is saying.  When God speaks and man responds, miracles happen.  God spoke and the world came into existence.  All of creation is straining, to hear God speak, because at his Words everything changes.  Joshua heard God and obeyed and the walls came down.

And that leads to the third key to a miracle and that is trusting God.  Even when you are waiting to hear from God you must trust that He is going to bring you out of where you are and taking you to a better place.

Jonah wasn't just looking for a way out of that big fish.  He made up his mind to obey God and to do what God commands.  He couldn't make God get him out of the fish, he knew he deserved to be there, it was his own rebellion and mistakes that had gotten him in that mess.  God did not owe anything to Jonah.  This leads us to the fourth key to your miracle.  Realize that God doesn't owe us anything.  Who are we that we get ourselves in a mess and then get angry if God doesn't come right away and get us out.    What should our response be?  Our response should be humility.   When we humble ourselves and come before God thankful that he cares for us in spite of the way that we turned out back on Him and went our OWN way we position ourselves for a miracle.   God is merciful and when we come to him in repentance, obedience, trust and humility he will always respond to us with kindness and faithfulness.   God works a plan for our deliverance and we must wait upon Him to come through in His time.