Minute Musings...Temper Tantrums

Have you ever been in a store and heard a child throwing a wild temper tantrum?  I'm sure
that we've all had occasion to witness the frantic parent trying to calm the flailing child down.
Or, perhaps you've been that frantic parent trying to restrain your kicking screaming child, all
the time wondering, what on earth had possessed your little angel!  When I was younger...
before children, when I thought I had all the answers, I used to say to myself...never my child!
Well, looking back, I remember an occasion or two, when yes, even my little darlings dared
to try the tantrum!  You don't have to teach a child to sin, it comes naturally, from the sin
nature that we are all born with.

But before we are too hard on these little sweethearts, may I tell you that we are all guilty
of throwing temper tantrums...Spiritual temper tantrums.  Now, you might be saying, no, not
me!  But I think, if your honest, you will have to admit that yes, you have thrown the occasional
Spiritual temper tantrum.  A temper tantrum can be passive as well.  You'll recognize this with
your children...the crossed arms, turned down lip, evil eyes and seething breath.  They might
not say anything, but you know they are very angry with you.  We do this with God sometimes.
We defiantly take a stand, that we are not going to talk to that person, we are not going to ask
for forgiveness, we are not...  Yes we are guilty.

Jonah 1:2 & 3  "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it;  for their
wickedness is come up before me.  But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the
presence of the LORD..."  God told Jonah to do something and he said in his heart..NO,
and he fled from the presence of the Lord God.  Just as our children cannot disobey us
without consequence, so you cannot disobey God with His judgement falling on you.  We
know the story, how God caused a great storm, and Jonah was eventually thrown over-
board in order to save the lives of those on the ship.  God had prepared a great fish to
swallow Jonah.  It was there, in the belly of that fish, that he came to his senses, repented
and surrendered to the will of God.  He went to Nineveh and witnessed a revival in that
city.  But wouldn't it have been so much easier on him, if he had just obeyed God in the
first place?

We as grown-ups act as stubborn as little children don't we.  We want our way and try to
disregard what God asks of us.  The next time God tells you to do something, don't passively
stand there with a temper tantrum seething in your heart!  Learn to sweetly submit and say
with Samuel of old, "Speak; for Thy servant heareth."  1 Samuel 3:10