Jonah 1:5 Sleeping on the job.

Jonah 1:5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.  And all this time Jonah was sound alseep down in the hold.

I have often wondered how Jonah could sleep with all the commotion going on around him.  I like it quiet when I sleep.  A lot of noise wakes me up.  The sailors of the ship were shouting to their gods for help.  They were losing their battle to save their ship and their lives.  They were frantic and desperate for any help they could possibly get, but no help was coming.  They went and found Jonah, woke him up, and begged him to pray to his God in the hopes that maybe there was help to be found there.

Jonah was in a deep sleep.  It seems to me like that the church today is much like Jonah was.  There is a raging storm going on all around us.  The world is all stirred up and many are desperately crying out for help.  They are trying everything they know to do to save themselves and the world we live in, but it’s not working.  Yet, the church is in a deep sleep.  We are content to let the storms rage while we sleep.  We are in our own little world and not doing much of anything to try to calm the storms.  Many of us have even let the storms into our lives.

Dear friend, if you know the Lord, you have the answer within you for all the storms of life.  There is no storm the Lord cannot calm.  We can help, if only we would.  If we are not able to enter into the eye of the storm ourselves, we can pray for those who do.  In fact, we must!  Without the Lord’s help, the storms will overpower those who are in it.  Pray much that the Lord will enable those who are out there trying to do what they can to help others out of the storm.  Pray that others will recognize the danger of the storms.  Pray that people will have a desire to change their ways so that they can overcome their storms. 

The world is not going to change until Christ comes and changes it, but that does not mean that we can’t have victory while in the world.  Christ has overcome the world.  He has guaranteed help to those who are awake and are trusting in Him to help them.  Do not sleep while the storm rages around you.  Wake up while there is still time.  Jesus is the Master of the sea and our shelter in the times of storm.