I’ve told God, “No,” before.  I’ve played the part of Jonah so perfectly I’m sure he would’ve been shaking his head had he seen and heard.  It was at seminary, a time I was not a fan of.  He told me oh so clearly to pray for it and all the people there.  5 years of rubbish save a couple classes and I had no room for even entertaining the idea.  I felt so abandoned by Him, my mind was like, “No, You don’t get to speak to me now, and not for them.”  But only after so many years did I realize His silence was a test, a test I failed miserably.

What’s it like to work against God?  What is it like to say “No” to Him who gives life?  And for what?  Because it seemed like I was more offended at what they were doing than He was?  Didn’t I know that He knew exactly what was going on and that along with the world and every thing in the universe, He’s got it and knows what needs to be done about it?  At the time, I would have said “yes, I know”, but it felt to me that for whatever reason He was cutting off the branch He put me on.  Betrayed, abandoned, mocked, this was but a minuscule portion of the path Jesus walked.  I was such a wimp, a crybaby in the grand scheme of things.  What I should have considered an honor, like my brothers today and so long ago who were killed for walking His path, I considered as failure on His part.  O how ridiculous I was that I felt I could even utter the words of Jesus when He said, “Why have You forsaken me?”  But it truly was what it felt like.

O I did pray, I pronounced the most binding curse upon the place that I could think of.  I wanted it to crumble, I wanted no trace of it left behind.  “A little much?” you might ask.  Possibly.  To me they were a source of poison, poison that would infect His Kingdom, poison that, as it seems, fits perfectly in the path America is currently on.  What did He want me to pray for?  Revival.

Since those days, I have repented and prayed for the place.  Pathetic prayers, much like the eight words Jonah uttered in obedience to Nineveh, Jonah 3:4, but I was too late.  When I hear the stories of others who were there, some became drunks, others chose a life of sin, and still others viewed their days there as very dark and depressing.  Could my prayers, had I been obedient, made any difference?  I may never know.  They had a prayer room, in the 5 years I attended I never heard of its use.

I have heard that the place has fallen on hard times, do I rejoice?  I am not able.  Who knows what could have become of it had I prayed what and when He told me to?  Who knows what stories could have been told of the place if it had changed from a source of poison to a source of life?  I don’t.  Is it a bit megalomaniac of me to think in such ways?  Had I prayed, it may not have come to pass, but I would have accomplished for myself a peace that only comes from obedience.