Mindful Meditations: Jonah and Daily Reflection

By Elizabeth Prata

That day, I was trying photography from different angels. I give myself challenges. After I downloaded the pics from my experiment I chose this one. It was a big leaf.

The more I ooked at it the more I thought about Jonah. How at the end he sat sulkily on the hill in Jonah 4:5-7,

“Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade, until he could see what would happen in the city. 6 So the Lord God designated a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head, to relieve him of his discomfort. And Jonah was overjoyed about the plant. 7 But God designated a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered.”

And the hole reminded me of the worm God sent eating the plant so it withered.

I was pleased with this thought, because aside from the self-set challenge of photography, I had also challenged myself to think biblically. Seeing and contemplating God in His creation and thinking of biblical scenes as I go about my daily life. I had been too busy and rushed lately, and I realized I’d ended too many days with nary a thought about Jesus.

We are told in Philippians 4:8 that “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

But how? What? Training my mind to align with the Spirit’s desire to think on the true, the noble, and the good took a while. I’m literal and don’t make connections easily. I mean, that when I see a leaf, it’s a leaf.

Resolve to think of Christ during the day. Pray and ask the Spirit to lead you in this. Don’t let the day get away from you without meditating on scripture and applying its righteous net to your mind to screen out the sinful thoughts and capture the good.

Then go a step farther. I was thinking about Jonah and the selfish self was laughing, ‘O that silly Jonah, he wanted bad for God’s people and God was displeased ha ha.’ So now it was time to think of ME, my selfish self. AM I like Jonah? Am I wanting something God would be displeased with? Am I praying errantly like Jonah did? Ask the Spirit to reveal sin in you that you may not have spotted.

Seek the good and the noble and meditate upon those things, and then actively seek to instill Godly desires and repent for the ungodly desires. Think…then act.