The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the LORD… 
Jonah 1:1-3

Less than two years after my family began our ministry at Wears Valley Ranch, I received a telephone call from a staff member at our church in Atlanta: “Jim, I want you to pray about going to Ukraine in the former Soviet Union to hold evangelistic meetings. We’re sending a missions team, and we need a preacher to go and be the evangelist.”

I laughed and said, “I’m really more into Bible teaching. I’m not an evangelist.”

He said matter-of-factly, “We’ve been praying about it and we feel sure that you’re supposed to go.”

I asked, “When is the trip?”

“In August.”

“I can’t go in August. That’s out of the question.”

“Well, please pray about it. We’ve been praying a lot and we’re convinced that you’re the one who’s supposed to go and preach.”

I replied, “You’re wasting your time. Someone else has already asked me about this trip, and I told him I can’t go.”

He asked, “Would you pray about it?”

I said, “No, I don’t need to pray about it. I just can’t do it. God has already given me more work to do in Wears Valley than I can handle. I am overwhelmed here and I can’t possibly do it. I don’t need to pray. I’m just not your man.”

He persisted, “Would you please pray about it?”

I asked, “Where in Ukraine is the trip?”

He said, “About fifty miles from Chernobyl.”

As I thought about the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the thought occurred to me, “I would come back and give a whole new meaning to ‘afterglow’ service. This can’t be from God. I’m a meticulous, neurotic person, and there is no way that God would send me into an uncomfortable situation where everything is likely to be contaminated. I knew He wouldn’t ask me to do this.

The church staff member brought me back to the point as he asked the same simple question again, “Would you pray about it?”

Finally, I looked at the clock and said, “I’ll pray, and I’ll call you at ten tomorrowmorning and let you know the answer.” It was ten p.m. I was confident that within twelve hours the answer “NO” would still be clear. But, I didn’t pray about it that night before I went to bed. I felt confident I didn’t need to pray. This invitation was a “no-brainer.”

The next morning I dressed and prepared to study my Bible and pray as usual. I was going to pray about the Ukraine thing afterwards — kind of as a “By the way, God, staff at Mt. Vernon think I ought to go to Ukraine, isn’t that a hoot?”

As I picked up my Bible, the Lord asked me a question, “What have you been studying?”

Suddenly, I had this horrifying realization that I had been studying the same book of the Bible for weeks. I had even remarked to my wife and several other people that I didn’t understand why the Lord kept bringing me back to this same book of the Bible over and over.

I had said, “I don’t understand it. I’ve outlined it. I’ve analyzed it. I’ve researched it. I’ve preached from it. I’ve led studies on it. I feel like I’m done, and God keeps taking me back to that book and saying, “Read it some more. There’s some more I want to show you.” God faithfully kept showing me more and more out of this one little book in the Old Testament.

On this particular morning when I had promised to pray about Ukraine, God just asked, “What have you been studying?”

I said sheepishly, “Jonah.”

God said, “What about that Ukraine trip?”

“Oh, God! You don’t want me to go to Ukraine! This is not the time. Lord, I’m not your man. Send somebody else. I’m busier than anyone else as it is. Let me explain what all I have to do.”

The more I talked to God, the more I realized I was just wasting my time. God was asking me a very simple question: “Do you want to obey me?” So, I called at ten and agreed to go as the preacher to Ukraine.

The first meeting in Chernigov was in a former communist hall that had just been turned over to the people of the city. It had been Soviet Union property and now with the demise of communism, the hall was property of the city. The room was small and crowded with over three hundred people packed all the way to the edges.

I presented a gospel message and gave an invitation to follow Christ. I thought I made it clear that the invitation was for those who had never previously made any kind of commitment whatsoever to Jesus Christ and who would now like to completely surrender their lives to Him as their Lord and Savior. I asked those wanting to make this commitment to please stand. About eighty percent of the people in that crowded room stood to their feet.

I turned to the translator and said, “I don’t think they understood. Please, have them sit back down.” He complied, as I thought to myself, “I’ve got to make this clearer.” So, I said: “This is not for those of you who are already believers. This is not for those of you who want to publicly declare what you have privately believed. In a moment, we’ll deal with you. But, this is for those of you who really have never done anything like this whatsoever. You have never called out to God and asked Him to save you. You have never asked Him to forgive your sins. You are making a first time commitment, having decided today, ‘I believe this is true, and I want to give my life to Jesus Christ.’ If this is the commitment you want to make, giving Jesus your whole life, willing to follow Him no matter what the cost, then please stand.”

Eighty percent of the people stood again. In a week of meetings in various remote villages where there had been no church in seventy years, there were over a thousand first-time professions of faith. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere I’ve been. And, I would have missed it completely if God had not graciously, patiently overcome my resistance and sent me where I did not wish to go.

Prayer is not about learning to manipulate God to get Him to do what we want Him to do. God is not an ATM or vending machine. God is God. He’s the boss. Prayer is not a means He has given us in order to get our way with Him. Prayer is a means whereby we are conformed to His likeness, and we learn to get in step with His sovereign will. We learn to hear what He is saying, to desire what He desires, and to do what He wants us to do. Is there anything that would be too much for God to ask of you?

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BOOK:

Hearing His Voice

The Life of PRAYER
Book 2