Jonah
1 reminds me of a moment in my life that could not have lasted more
than a couple of seconds, yet certainly changed the direction of my
life. It was the brief moment between the car hitting my motorcycle
and me hitting the ground. I see it in slow-motion. Tumbling
mid-air, bike cartwheeling down the road, car smashed, knowing there
would be another impact. I believe that 15 years of wrestling taught
me how to land, and miraculously there was a small triangular divider
of uncut grass just my size. I walked away, unbroken, with some
internal injuries requiring a time of inactivity for healing. I
believe the book of Jonah is literal, with some hard to swallow
specifics, but Jonah represents each of us in our time of running
away. He was a prophet in the corrupt northern kingdom of Israel and
probably felt like he had a big enough challenge dealing with an evil
king and a nation that had turned from God. The chapter begins, “The
word of the Lord came to Jonah… ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh
and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before
Me’“. We can speculate
about his motivation, but we can read his reaction, “But
Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish“.
The key to understanding is that he went in the exact opposite
direction, “to flee from the
Lord“. Nearly all of us have
had a “flee from God” experience; some never stop.
The
chapter continues, “the Lord
sent a great wind” and “a
violent storm arose“. You
know a boat trip is not going well when “All
the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god“.
Where was Jonah? He was “below
deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep“.
It is much less painful to just disengage when you are on the run
from God. It was the fearful sailors that roused him, “How
can you sleep? Get up and call on your god!”
Isn’t it interesting that Jonah the prophet did not call out to
God. Fleeing people spend too much time looking back and miss out on
the present. Have you been running in your sleep?
It
was the sailors that asked the “why” questions. “They
cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah“.
They were clearly searching for the truth, “What
kind of work do you do? Where do you come from?”
This prophet of God was not preaching by his actions, nor was he
even speaking God’s Word. This caused the sailors to ask, “What
have you done?” When we run
from our own personal great commission, those around us notice
something is missing. They asked, “What
should we do?” These pagan
sailors were more afraid of God than was Jonah. He told them to
“throw me into the sea“,
but “Instead, the men did their
best to row back to land… But
they could not“. Anyone that
has ever spent time on the ocean knows there are forces in this
universe that are greater than any individual. They cried out to God
for mercy, “Then they… threw
him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.
At
this the men greatly feared the Lord“.
It is a clear sign of turmoil when things are calmer without us. In
this instant before hitting the water it is likely that Jonah’s
thoughts were on himself, but the thoughts of God were on Jonah as
well. We read, “The LORD
provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights“.
Friend, are you on the run? Sometimes we must be forced to stop in
order to consider what we are running from. God prepared a patch of
grass for me that is no longer there today. Do you need to
understand God’s plan for you? Are you tired of running? The
answer might be as simple as “Be
still, and know that I am God”
(Psalms 46:10).