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Chapter 5
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Chapter 5 by Phil As a kid growing up in the 1970s, we may have had only three TV channels, but we had something today's youth will never experience - Saturday morning cartoons. Each week I'd go on wild adventures with my friends Tom and Jerry, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby and Shaggy, and my personal favorites - Batman and Robin. "THWACK!" "SPLAT!" "KAPOW!" - oh, the memories. Sometimes the half hour drew to a close with our caped crusaders caught in a perilous situation and the announcer would say something like, "Is this the end of the dynamic duo? Tune in next week - same bat-time, same bat-channel!" How frustrating if I had to miss the next week and never find out if Batman and his little buddy escaped to fight bad guys another day. (Spoiler alert - they always did.) Cliffhanger endings keep us coming back, because as Paul Harvey said, we all want to know "the rest of the story." Pam and I came across a cliffhanger in our recent Bible studying of the book of Jonah. If it's been a while since you've dipped your toes in the whale infested waters, here's a snapshot - Chapter 1 - Jonah runs from God, get thrown overboard in a storm and is swallowed by a great fish. Chapter 2 - Jonah prays inside the fish and gets puked up on shore. Chapter 3 - Jonah preaches to Ninevah and they turn from their evil ways. Chapter 4 - Jonah is the only preacher in history who is mad because people respond to his sermon! (Interesting side note - Jonah's message is only five words long in the original language.) Jonah throws a temper tantrum when his shade plant dies. Just like Batman's narrator, the chapter ends with God asking, "should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?" - Jonah 4:11 We eagerly flip the page to find answers to our confounding conundrum - Will Jonah repent of his dour disposition? Will super short sermons save surrounding cities? What lies ahead for our puked up prophet? And we find - nothing. There is no chapter 5. Like a mid-season cancelled TV show, we are left hanging. So what can we learn from Jonah's brief appearance in the pages of Biblical history? None of us are promised a chapter 5. Don't let your story end grumpy, groaning and ungrateful. Live each day celebrating God's compassion, amazed at His abundant mercy, and trusting that tomorrow He has something even better waiting for you. The choice is yours, choose joy! And for my pastor buddies, if you want city-wide revival from your sermons, remember the three "P"s from Jonah chapters 2 and 3 - Pray, Puke and Preach. (Why is Pam is rolling her eyes again?) Living each day for (and with) Jesus,
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Phil & Pam Morgan
We're authors and musicians who loves to talk about faith & spirituality, arts & crafts, and music. Subscribe and join over 2,000+ newsletter readers every week!
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