Our Father In Heaven

As promised, we are ready and anxious to partake in what is being offered to us, reminding us of some attributes of our Father in heaven. These are attributes which should be seen in us, if indeed we are His offspring. We are viewing these from a very different place and person. We are viewing these from Jonah, the servant of God, who tried to run away from Him. What makes this even more interesting, is that this is all included in one verse of a prayer Jonah speaks to Almighty God, during an unsettling time in Jonah’s life. Here is the verse of Jonah’s prayer to Father God.

He prayed to the LORD, ‘O LORD', is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I know that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Jonah 4: 2.

Through our abiding, ever revealing Teacher, we have been completely immersed in abounding springs of Living prayer, as our Guide and Teacher, God, the Holy Spirit, has chosen to bring us an example, a living testimony of who God is through His chosen servant. Our Teacher has skillfully and wonderfully used this prayer of His displeased and angry servant, to display six of His attributes. Keep in mind also that these attributes are the very things which have made God’s child, friend and servant, into one who is as an enemy, an activist against the ways of his Lord. Remember, prayer is emanating from the lips of one who, at the moment, is angry with God.

Before going any further however, we should know these facts. Jonah is God’s servant, whom the Lord loves and has handpicked to do a specific and very special life-saving work with God’s lost and wicked people. Advisably though, it is through these same words, there will come repentance and salvation. However, God has chosen to do His work of saving grace in a way that does not please His servant Jonah. You see, God has sent Jonah to speak God’s words of damnation and destruction, through which will come repentance and salvation. Please note also, with unmistakable mind, that Jonah knows his Lord well and he does love Him dearly, for Jonah does not hate his God, he is just angry with Him.

We now turn our focus to this single verse and receive what our Holy Spirit, our able Teacher, enables us to receive, know and display in our own lives. May we truly own teachable spirits, grateful hearts and childlike minds which bring pleasure to our Father in heaven.

Our Approachable God- He prayed to the LORD.

God is Spirit and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. There cannot be one without the other. Does this not hold for prayer also? God is indeed Spirit and for flesh, human beings, to pray to Spirit, must also be in Spirit and in Truth. That Jonah prayed to the LORD, brings us back to the graciousness of the One who is Spirit, to grant us, humans, such Divine Grace of coming to Him in prayer. Jonah, God’s servant, even in his displeased state, teaches us that our God is Approachable regardless of our state.

Whether you are pleased or displeased with God, do you declare and display this attribute about Him?