The Story:
In the first three verses of the book of Jonah, he tries to run away from God.
At first glance, this seems so stupid to me. How did Jonah think running away from an omniscient, omnipresent God would go? For context’s sake, let’s dig into what happened before he ran away from God.
God asked him to go preach to Nineveh. Nineveh belonged to the Assyrian empire. The Assyrian empire was the cruelest empire in recorded history. Nineveh, therefore, can be assumed to be equally as cruel. In fact, the first verse of the book of Jonah says the wickedness of Nineveh had come before the Lord and that’s why Jonah was being sent to preach against it.
Bottom line: Nineveh was an evil, scary place. Jonah wanted no part of that. Can we blame him? Would any of us want to walk into an ISIS stronghold and preach against their evil acts? If you said anything other than “no” I want to remind you that God sent Jonah to preach against them, not the blow them up. If you still answered anything other than “no” then you are a much braver person than I.
Jonah decided he didn’t want to go to a place that would likely kill him. It wasn’t just that though. Jonah, a prophet of God for the Israeli kingdom, is incredibly familiar with how merciful God is. In chapter 4 we find out Jonah figured God would be merciful enough to not destroy Nineveh if they repented, and we also find out that Jonah has a problem with that. We’ll talk more about that last bit later, but for now let’s focus on Jonah running away from God.
For either of the reasons listed above, Jonah says “hard no” to the whole “go to Nineveh” command, and he runs as far away as he can. He jumps on a ship to Tarshish, which is located in modern day Spain, whereas Nineveh is located in modern day Iraq. At the time, sailing to the other side of the Mediterranean Sea was basically the other side of the world, so that’s were he went. Correction: That’s where he tried to go.
As they sail away, a huge storm comes up on them and threatens to destroy the boat and everyone on it. All the sailors are running around, dumping cargo, praying to their various pagan gods and desperately searching for something that will save them. Jonah, meanwhile, is sleeping down under the deck. In short, he’s avoiding the problem.
Once the captain wakes him up, the truth comes out. They find out Jonah is running away from God and everyone is terrified. Jonah tells them to throw him overboard, to his death, to save themselves. The crew isn’t quite up for human sacrifice just yet, so they try to get safely back to shore. After that fails, they finally throw him overboard after asking God to not hold them liable for his death.
The storm stops. All of the sailors are flabbergasted, and they immediately start worshiping God because Jonah basically just proved that his God is the true God. This is the high point of chapter 1, Jonah’s disobedience ends up revealing God to a boat full of sailors and brings them to the true God.
Then, of course, Jonah is swallowed by a fish. This is the part of the story everyone recognizes, Jonah gets saved from the depths by being swallowed by a fish.
The Take-Aways:
We cannot run from God. It isn’t possible. Nor is it advisable. God might sometimes guide us to do things we aren’t thrilled about, like preaching to Nineveh in the case of Jonah, or being crucified on the cross in the case of Jesus. However, God’s plan is perfect and there is always a beautiful purpose to his plan. We are in no way entitled to see his big picture plan, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a role to play in it.
At the end of the book of Jonah, we learn that Nineveh is forgiven and the city turns to God. That is beautiful! In order for it to happen, though, Jonah had to go preach to them. Jonah didn’t want to do that, but Jonah doesn’t make the rules and neither do we! If God reveals a part of his plan to us then that is amazing, but God is under no obligation to do so.
There is hope in this first chapter. Even though Jonah disobeyed God, God was able to turn Jonah’s disobedience into a blessing for the people on the boat. Through Jonah’s mistake, God was revealed to a boat full of sailors. How amazing that our inadequacies can still be used to the glory of God!
Self Application:
At the beginning of this, I called Jonah stupid for running away from God. The more I learned, the more I understood. Odds are, I would’ve run away from that task as well. I identify with Jonah because I hate confrontation, and I don’t like going to scary places (for real, no haunted houses for me).
In fact, when I was getting ready to launch this podcast/blog, I almost backed out. I was so anxious that I wouldn’t have anything worth saying or that people wouldn’t like it, that I almost called it off. And yet . . . I also felt that I was being called to do this, that I NEED to do this. Perhaps it was the enemy trying to drag me down and prevent the glory of God from being spread, or perhaps I am just too wrapped up in my comfort zone. Either way, I had a few days of severe anxiety about this whole thing and my life coach (Karla Cardella) had to talk me up. No, she didn’t pay me to say that, I really did need her to convince me to keep going.
In the end, even if I say the wrong thing, or I mess up, God can still use this for his Glory just like he used Jonah’s fear to reveal himself to the sailors.
Coffee Tip:
For fresher tasting coffee, buy whole coffee beans and grind them immediately prior to brewing your coffee. Of course, this isn’t always feasible (camping, on an airplane, etc) so having coffee grounds isn’t the worst thing in the world. Just remember that even though the expiration date may give you lots of time to brew the coffee - the longer you hold onto an opened bag of coffee beans/grounds the less fresh it will taste.
As always, I am but a work in progress.
Cheers.
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