Hi there everyone!

Wow, I am so excited to get to share with you a devotional that God has used greatly in my life. Knowing that this is for alumni from SVCA, I believe its even more appropriate.

I want to share a little about the life of Jonah, In the first few verses of Jonah we see that God has sent him word to do a job. That is a huge part of my devotional. Here we see that Jonah is a Believer and that God has given him a job to do. I believe that when we become Christians that we all recieve a job to do, (that group of people that we are around that aren't

believers) and for most of us that have gone to Shenandoah Valley we have missed our job. Jonah, like many of us runs from God, or so he thinks! He buys a ticket for a boat trip away from where he is supposed to be going.

How many of us have done that? I know I did. It is so interesting to me, that God just wouldn't get someone else to do the job. He wouldn't let Jonah go, instead he causes a great storm to come up and cause the boat to close to sinking. The funny thing is that all the other people on the boat were in total chaos running around trying to figure out what was going on, and Jonah was sleeping on the bottom of the ship. Could that be many of us?

Chaos going on all around us, causing evil to come upon people that are our family and friends, and yet we sleep not knowing that the evil is all ours. Finally, the men wake Jonah and ask him who he is and where he is from, Jonah says that he is a God fearing person that knows the one who made the water and dry land. WOW, what a hypocrite! Sure doesn't seam to fear God, just seems to have all the right answers when problems come up! Ever been there?

Then the men ask Jonah how would your God Stop this, I think Jonah still gave the wrong answer.

I completely believe that if Jonah would have said turn this ship towards Nineveh the storm would have stopped, but instead he said something that gets me, He said throw me over board, anyone that has ever been out on the sea or ocean would know that if they were to be overboard that pretty much meant SURE DEATH. Jonah chose to die rather then do what God called him to do.

But even that didnt work, God just send another vessel to get him where he needed him to be, You guessed it! That Great Fish. That must have been terrible with all the stuff going on inside a fish, but God had chosen Jonah to reach those people and not anyonelse, so when he decided to not go on the ship, God sent him another ride. That finally got Jonahs attention and as you all know that fish spit him up on shore back in the same direction that God had intended anyway.

Final thoughts

1: We all have jobs to do, people around us to reach

2: We are INHIZGRIP! Praise The Lord! I can't get away, nor do I want to

3: We can chose Gods way through the Bible and the teachings given to us by our parents and teachers, or we can chose a big old ugly fish that will take us under before we get where God wants us any. The choice is ours!

Dear Jesus,

Thanks for making Christianity eternal,

Thanks for keeping the contract that was made with me, I know sometimes I desire to run from your plan because its faith with out seeing, but God thanks for fish that bring me back around.

You are AWESOME AND I LOVE YOU!

In Jesus Name,

AMEN

Andy Combs,
Alumni Class of 1995