We just began a series on the book of Jonah and I feel this need to win the book back from the Veggie Tale / Sunday school / cartoon-whale frame of mind, because it’s really a powerful book.

Running Away

The story begins with God telling His spokesman (prophet) Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria, to announce the coming judgment to the city if they didn’t change their ways, but Jonah runs away! I know it’s easy to look at this and think, “Come on dude, you’re a prophet, get in the game”, but I wonder how often we’ve run away when God asked us to step up to the plate? Maybe it’s to involve ourselves in something out of our comfort zone, or to forgive that friend or family member. Heck, sometimes just crossing the street and extending ourselves to our neighbor is too much work. I think more often it’s the prophet, not pagan, who has the issue with running from God.

After Jonah boards the ship heading for Tarshish, there is a storm that redirects the next chain of events. We know that God is behind the storm and that mercy is behind God’s motives; mercy for those in Nineveh, for the sailors on the boat, and for Jonah.

It’s interesting how, because of a severe storm, so many significant things can change for the sailors in such a short time. They move from fearing the storm to fearing the Lord, from crying out to all their gods, to crying out to Yahweh, from asking Jonah to wake up, to asking him what they should do. And once again we see the prophet is asleep while the pagans are in pursuit of the answers

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The book of Jonah is many things, but I believe at its heart is the invisible hand of God clearly being seen and at work for the benefit of all involved. The love of God is much more dangerous than we think. It is furious and jealous and is willing to risk our physical and material comfort for an eternal and spiritual relationship, which is far better. As Jesus said, “What does it profit if you gain the world, but lose your soul?” I wonder how many times in the dark storms of life do we pray for our circumstances to change and it never dawns on us that what needs to change is not our circumstances, but us.