My Personal Jonah Experience

It’s exams week at the UST College of Nursing. Originally, our exams was scheduled from Monday to Wednesday, but due to GMA’s declaration of Monday being a non-working holiday (Ka Erdie’s burial), it was moved to Tuesday. Since Monday pa, puspusan na ang pag-aaral ko. I need to be able to read and re-read all my pages. I don’t want to take the tests unprepared. I was so caught up studying that frankly, I had little time to pray, little time to have quality and quantity talk with my God. Our 2 exams for the first day went well (I think). I’ve read the answers to majority of the questions, and I think I did pretty well. When I got home, aral ulet. Aral, aral, aral. “Mamaya na lang ako mag-dedevotion” I told myself. I ended up falling asleep after I finished studying. When I woke up, Wednesday na. Konting pray, tapos aral ulet. That morning, sa CR, it was as if The Holy Spirit squeezed my heart reminding me not to forget my First Love. Joyfully, I got rebuked. The conviction was strong, but so is the joy, for I know very well that The Lord rebukes those whom He loves. Immediately after that, I decided to spend one hour of my time, exclusively to God and His Word (I remember saying, “Lord, miss ko na mga revelations Mo.”). My carnal mind was totally against it and kept telling me “Mag-aral ka na lang, sayang yung 1 hour oh.” But my decision is final. So there, I spent time (not actually an hour pa nga eh) to read God’s Word, and simply talked to Him, surrendered everything to Him, especially my exams. I actually had this devotion sa jeep, paalis na din kasi ko nun. Kasama na sa expertise ko ang reading while riding, been doing it for almost 4 years now. I reminded myself of His Past Great Works in my life. I got encouraged all the more to trust Him in this. The Holy Spirit led me to read the Book of Jonah. It’s a very short book and I have read it before, but there was conviction to read it again. When I finished, I had to pause to consider God’s Illogical love for His creatures, no matter how evil/dirty they have become. Check this out (The Lord speaking). . .

“And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left – and much livestock?” (Jonah 4:11)

-This last verse gave me a Selah moment. I got reminded of God’s Compassion. The Kind of Compassion that even angels and demons could not understand.

After these, I went to our school’s central library to study (again). From 8am to 11am, I was there reading and preparing for my exams scheduled 1:30pm. Then at around 11:15am, I started receiving text messages announcing that classes are suspended due to the heavy rain. I kind of felt bad a little, kasi nag-prepare nga ko di’ba? But okay, no harm done, ‘di naman masasayang mga inaral ko. I decided to just go home, and probably get some sleep, then study again. On the way home, sa jeep, Christian, my best friend called me sa phone. There was an unusual excitement in his voice. What he told me, shocked me: “Karl! Karl! Alam mo bang cancelled na class!? Sobrang ‘Thank God’ kasi mali pala yung nakopya nating sked! Bukas pa pala dapat yung mga inaral natin!” –upon hearing that, ‘di ko alam kung matatawa ba ko, o maiiyak sa tuwa, or sisigaw sa galak, hehe, pero ang puro nasabi ko lang sa kanya over the phone were the words: “WEH!?”; “GRABEH!!”; “WOW!”; “MIRACLE!”; “THANK GOD!”. After we talked, I paused to consider what happened. . . Kung natuloy ang exam kanina, at the least, siguro pasang awa lang ang mga nakuha ko, because I really didn’t review for the subjects na ipagte-test pala namin that day. I reviewed for the wrong day, at kung nagkataon, anong mangyayari sa ‘kin. Upon this realization, Great Peace and Joy flooded my heart. Of course it would be foolish to think na ako lang ang dahilan kung bakit hinayaan Ni Lord ma-cancel ang klase, but looking at it through a personal viewpoint, I got amazed by the fact that God manipulated even the weather and the minds of the CHED officials (hehe!) just so He could save me from flunking my exams (Once again, I am looking through a personal viewpoint). But actually, as I continue to process what has happened, I realized: It wasn’t actually the suspension of classes that made me glad, and to be honest, not even the fact that I just got recently saved from devastating exam results . . . It was the knowledge and awareness that God is watching over me and causing all things to work for my favor! It was that assurance that God is with me that gave me so much Joy! God manipulated even the weather just so He could bring me back to an awareness of His Will. That sort of intervention reminds me of a certain prophet. Guess who – Jonah! God caused a storm just so he could bring this prophet back to the Center of His Will. It was also like a Nineveh experience to me of some sort because after I talked to Christian, I was so overflowed with Joy that I immediately want to share it to my co-passengers (even though I totally don’t know any of them!). When God prompted me to do so, I simply couldn’t say “NO”. When I left that jeep, I trusted The Holy Spirit to continue the message. Great Joy and Peace was upon me. “Thank Your Lord” I said.