Excuses, Excuses!

Yesterday, while I was just sitting, listening to someone talk, my brain and heart were suddenly flooded with thoughts of something I felt God might be calling me to do, something that would take me outside of my comfort zone. So what did I do? I fell to my knees and immediately began to see what God would have me do, calling out to him, Here I am Lord, use me!
Um, no.
Unfortunately I cannot say that.
I wish I could. But instead, the truth is, I immediately began to think of all the reasons and excuses why God would NOT call me to do that. Excuse after excuse flooded my mind, and before long, I had almost talked myself into the notion that it had only been a crazy thought, burgeoning in my mind due to sleepless nights and too much stress. Not a God thought. No way. Twenty-four hours later I am still plagued by this thought that keeps coming, but I just keep running from it, making a my "pros and cons" list in my head, giving myself a thousand excuses of why this could never work.
Of course it couldn't be from God. After all, we all know that God ONLY calls people to do things that are easy and make complete sense to the doer. Right? I mean, come on, look at all the examples of people in the Bible that God called to...oh, wait.
Hm.
God does interrupt our carefully planned lives in order to bring Him glory.
I remembered the person in the Bible that I had been studying the last few weeks whose life was completely interrupted and turned upside down by a calling from God. Jonah.
God called Jonah to go do something that was WAY out of his comfort zone and made absolutely no sense to him. God wanted Jonah to go preach to his enemies, and Jonah decided that made no sense and so he went the other way.  And, eventually, after being swallowed by a fish, vomited out, obeying, preaching, then pouting, then fianlly, he maybe saw the bigger picture of what God was trying to accomplish with his life.
So the bigger question here is - Do I want to be swallowed up by the busyness of my life, until it vomits me out, because that's MY plan. Or, will I quit making excuses and take a moment to put myself aside and ask God what He wants to do with me? 
God sees the bigger picture. The beauty of the ending of Jonah's story in the Bible is seeing how God used it all to shed light on His thoughts, and grace, to a rebellious nation AND a rebellious and stubborn man who was hesitant to cooperate.  He kept after Jonah, continually molding his heart into His likeness...and saved a nation along the way too.
God's plans are bigger than my little day-to-day plans. Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans He has for us, plans full of hope and a future....but verse 13 says we'll only find those "good plans" if we seek God with all our hearts.
Guess that means no more excuses.  And much more seeking.
God wants to do big things with me, and with you, and sometimes, like Jonah, that may mean stepping WAY out of our comfort zone. But, it also may mean the salvation of someone else. Is it worth it?
Or do I need to be vomited out first?
Eww! I hope not.