My husband and I lead a small group in our home on Monday nights for college students. It’s one of our favorite things we’ve done since moving to Memphis and living so close to the U of M. We have new faces and old faces alike this semester around our table having dinner, praying for one another and talking through scripture. When we asked them what they’d like to study this semester, we decided on the Minor Prophets – mainly because we all agreed that we do not spend enough time in the OT and because we give up on our reading plans before we make it to the Minor Prophets most of the time. We started in Jonah, something familiar, and through that time of study, a thought came over me that I haven’t been able to shake. 

When students sit at our table, they know to expect the hard questions because while we might not like them in the moment, the hard questions lead us to the true answers that we’re really looking for in life. We read through Jonah 1 together and I asked “Who are your Ninevites?” Jonah didn’t rebel against God because he didn’t want to share the message God had given him, he rebelled because he didn’t want to go to the Ninevites specifically.

After the nervous laughter and the eye rolls had ended because “this feels too personal”, we talked about why it’s so hard to share the Gospel with those that God has placed in front of us. We talked about the specific people that God has placed in our path for the sake of sharing the gospel yet we just don’t want to follow through because they aren’t our kind of people or because it would be uncomfortable or inconvenient.

And then came the thought that I haven’t been able to shake – how can we be so prone to choose our comfort over the salvation of others?

That’s exactly what we do day in and day out. And God has called us to more. God has called us to look upon the faces of those we encounter daily as his children whom he loves and longs to reconcile to himself. God has called us to go and look into the faces of unreached people around the world and see more than just a statistic. We’re called to more than just posting gospel centered articles and images on social media while we have lost brothers and sisters who are searching for the God we serve and who will perish without Him. We’re called to more.

May our eyes be fixed on Jesus and may our hearts be changed to see the fields ripe for harvest. May we choose the salvation of others over our own personal comfort.