YOUR ASSIGNMENT BRIEF

Reference text: Jonah 1:1-10

Nearly every assignment at tertiary level comes with an assignment brief. In this can be found details of the task to be executed and where necessary, the how to complete the task, where to submit and when to submit by. That brief is meant to guide the individual executing the assignment.

The template we see with Jonah today is one that is evident throughout scripture whenever God came with an assignment brief: Abraham, Noah, Paul, Peter etc. In each of those scenes, we may see any combination of ‘the who, the what, the where, the when and the how’.

The ‘when and how’ are often the final pieces of the puzzle to come because that is where God becomes adaptive and personalizes His dealings. While the ‘when’ depends on the readiness of the vessels available and the calendar of God’s programme, the how allows God to express himself as master builder; stretching, pruning and building men on their way to fulfilling their assignments.

However, like Jonah, many receive their assignment brief and then ignore it completely. Given that the God-man partnership is so crucial, often God makes a move. What may seem like a forced move, Jonah’s tempest or Paul’s brief blindness, are a father’s desperate attempt to get his children to see Him as the option. Those discomforts were actually mercy at work.

What would have happened had Jonah never gone to Ninevah, and Paul never been encountered on the way to Damascus? Those are worth pondering on, perhaps another man would have been raised for the same task, but at what cost to God’s programme?

Beloved, God has given each of us an assignment brief, and many lose out when we don’t execute the details in that brief.

#sly