God fixes us

As I think about the messes I have made in my life and about the time I had strayed from my relationship with God. Don't we often fall into that line of thought where we want to fix ourselves or others?  I think I do, I think during the years I stayed away from God, I was expecting someday I could fix myself and come back. God never left me, he continued to work in my heart and finally I realized I could not fix me. Sometimes I think I still get into that mode of trying to fix myself. Sometimes when I hear people being critical of Christians, I think back to that time when I also felt like they are all hypocrites. I wanted to fix myself and just found I could not. Things just got worse and worse until I finally surrendered.  I still remember the time when God whispered in my ear, if you think it is so easy, show them how it is done and stop complaining.  Sometimes I look when so many things seem to be going wrong and I wonder what am I doing wrong? The things that we consider fixing first in our lives may not even be what God is concerned about. He sees our heart and sees all, it is his choice what he fixes first.  I wonder if I am on that same track again and seeing something I don't like in me, but God is looking at something totally different. Our lives are in his hands. God alone fixes hearts. God sets the agenda for our lives, especially if we claim to be his child. All of us are in his hands, and we don't see the big picture like God does. I read about Jonah just a few days ago, and he was angry with God because God didn't do things his way. God spared Nineveh and Jonah went outside the city and pouted, waiting to see what God would do. God sent Jonah to Nineveh to preach the word, in forty days he would destroy their city because their wickedness was great and God had had enough. They listened to Jonah and the people of the city repented and changed their ways. Let me put it this way, they stopped and put on sackcloth and ashes,  fasted and repented.  Jonah didn't want them to repent. He wanted God to destroy them as he had warned. God gave a chance to Nineveh and they took it. Don't we often do the same thing. God how can you be God and not do what I want you to do? When you write it out on paper, it is almost laughable. Me, tell the God of the universe, that created me, that gives me breath everyday, this is what I want you to do. Yet we pray and often ask God to do this or that, but the model prayer, says thy will not mine be done. God's agenda was to save 120,000 people from destruction, but poor old Jonah wanted God to destroy them instead.  He was angry with God because God wouldn't play it his way. God,  the God that put the stars in place and makes our earth rotate around the sun and makes gravity work, does not play by our rules. His will,  not mine be done, in my life also. Jonah was so angry, he wanted to die, why, because God would not play by Jonah's rules. God sets the agenda, God fixes hearts, God is still in control. Do you think God should have destroyed Nineveh? What kind of God would we call him if he had? Would we read Jonah and see God relent because of Jonah's temper tantrum, what would we say? God how could you destroy 120,000 people because one man is throwing a temper tantrum. We may not see things as clearly as we do in the story of Jonah and how foolish Jonah looks today, but we never see all that God sees. He never slumbers or sleeps. He is aware of what is happening in our world today. Perhaps he is wanting the same today, for people to repent. Forgive me Father and let thy will and they way be done in my life. God bless, LVZ.