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God met me - around 2014 while lying down in bed with my 2-year-old son, Andrew, reading a children’s bible about the story of Jonah and the whale. What began as a simple bedtime story became, quietly and unexpectedly, an invitation. Like Jonah, I had not set out to be changed; I was simply present, tired at the end of a day, and rested with Andrew while the Word of God slipped gently past my defenses. In this ordinary moment, God spoke a second time — not with thunder, but with tenderness.
The people of Nineveh ‘believed’ before certainty and before proof. Their repentance was not dramatic heroism but humble turning. Lent reminds me that conversion often begins this way: not in grand gestures, but in noticing where God already waits — in ordinary rooms, in family life, in stories meant for children yet spoken also to the restless adult heart.
Jesus tells us no sign will be given except Jonah. Perhaps the sign is this: God continues to call us - patiently, again and again. A contrite heart is simply one that turns to God with a humble heart, mind, and spirit, and patiently listens. Even now, the Lord invites me to return — not perfectly, but honestly — trusting that His mercy always arrives before judgment.
As we continue to intentionally recognize and peel the layers of our earthly selves to continue to reveal the human being that God placed us on this earth to be, may we continue to humbly and prayerfully show up, in the many ways our Lord reveals himself to us - in all things.
Randy Naku