Jonah 1
1) The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:
2) "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me, "
3) But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
4) Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
5) All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
6) The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish."
7) Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
8) So the asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"
9) He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."
10) This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)
11) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"
12) "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."
13) Instead, the mend did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.
14) Then they cried to the Lord, "O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for You, O Lord, have done as you pleased."
15) Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.
16) At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him.
17) But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
"You want me to go where, God? To Nineveh?" Jonah probably thought this was all a big dream...a nightmare, even. Nineveh was the capital city in the Assyrian Empire, and Assyria was filled with the kind of people that were easy to hate. Yet, God's mercy is not prejudiced. Nineveh's residents were sinful, wicked, and selfish, but God loved them just as much as He loves you and me.
I guess Jonah had some issues. First, he was jaded. He had a hatred for a particular people group, and he judged them without knowing them as individuals. (Sound familiar, even with Christians today?) And when God said to go, he went alright...in the opposite direction to Tarshish. He boarded a ship and laid low. (How could he think God wouldn't find him?)
Think about the irony. Jonah is a prophet and God calls him to go preach repentance to Nineveh. Instead, he runs to Joppa and hangs out sleeping in the bottom of the boat, seemingly hiding from God. How can a prophet get to that point where he actually thinks he can hide from God? Jonah knew he was not in line with what God wanted him to do. His actions were outright blatant sin. In fact, if I was running from God, I would hope I wouldn't be stupid enough to tell everyone why I was there. Yet Jonah 1:10 tells us that Jonah did just that.
Think about times in your life when God has clearly told you something. Maybe He's called you to full time ministry. Maybe He's shown you that you need to be involved in an area of service. Maybe He's asked for a commitment from you. What are you doing now? Have you run like Jonah? Are you laying low and hiding out?
What about today's modern day prophets and preachers? My heart is heavy thinking about great men of God who have fallen away, due to sin in their lives. In doing so, they not only destroy their reputation, but they destroy the reputation of Christ. Sin is powerful. It creeps into our lives and takes residence, sometimes without us even being aware of it. The more comfortable we become with sin, the easier it is to ignore it. Soon, we come to think there's nothing wrong with a little dabbling in it. Our hearts become cold toward the things of God, and we become self-focused instead of God-focused. Worse yet, we ignore the sin altogether. We keep "serving God" and ignore completely the elephant in the room.
Having daily times of confession and soul searching is so important. I'm sure Jonah didn't think he was such a bad guy for not loving the Assyrians. It's like if Osama Bin Laden walked into our church and said he wanted to be saved. Would it be so easy to share the love of Christ with him and embrace him with God's love? That's what the Assyrian Empire was to Jonah. His people had experienced atrocities from them. The last thing he thought was fair and just was for them to come to repentance. Yet, if Jonah was examining his heart, I would imagine God would have shown him his pride and selfishness.
Can you imagine the guilt Jonah had? He knew the storm was his fault, yet he didn't speak up until the sailors cast lots to see who was to blame. Then Jonah fessed up. You see, it's never too late to come clean with God. We can be in the midst of an unbelievable storm, but acknowledging God and His plan is always best. When Jonah told the sailors to throw him overboard, they didn't want to. Instead, they rowed harder toward land. But when they saw their efforts were futile, they reluctantly threw Jonah overboard, and asked God to not hold them accountable for killing an innocent man.
The Bible says in Jonah 1:16 that this experience caused these sailors to turn toward the one true God. Jonah 1:16 says "At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him." In Almighty God fashion, God brought good out of sin. Jonah's disobedience caused everyone around him to be in harm's way. But when Jonah had a change of heart and took responsibility for his actions, the sailors came to the Lord and worshiped Him.
Just like Jonah, our sin can bring harm to the innocent bystanders around us, but God can bring calm in the storm. And in a seemingly impossible way, God can bring us out of the storm unscathed. OK, we don't really know if Jonah had any scratches or bruises, but he was alive in the belly of a great fish, and that was a miracle.
I think of my own life, times where my priorities weren't right, times where I could have very easily gone the opposite direction. Times where I did. Yet I can look back and see how God loved me so much that He had prepared a way for me, like Jonah, to sit and think about my situation in the belly of a fish. Darkness. Dirt. Slime. Stench. Dried out skin from the salt. Me and God. God and Me. Solitude. Loneliness.
Have you ever been there, too? Just remember, if you're in the belly of the fish, stinky and disgusting, you're not alone. God is right there with you. Once you've committed your life to Him, He holds on to you with super-glue. You can't run away from him, try you might. Take time while you're there to examine yourself and pray. Ask God to show you sin in your life. It may be three days, it may be longer, but eventually, God will allow you to be spit out on dry land to serve Him again.
You want me to go where? You want me to do what? Why am I here in the darkness? Honesty with God. Confronting sin. Repentance. The story of Jonah is filled with practical applications...and I've only covered chapter one.
What about you? What is God telling you to do? Where is he telling you to go? Did He place a call on your life and you're running in the opposite direction? Is sin in your life keeping you from obeying? Are you in a storm of life? Do you feel like you're in solitary confinement?
I hope the next time God tells me something, I can take a lesson from Jonah. I hope I will just trust in His perfect plan and obey. Hopefully I won't ask, "You want me to go where?"
---Beth Banfill
www.GodandMe2theMax.com
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