The tale of Jonah is probably one of the most popular children’s Bible stories. It’s an exciting adventure, following Jonah on his adventures in the whale’s belly.
But Jonah represents a lot more than a nervous prophet in need of some redirection. The Biblical account reveals the bitterness and dissatisfaction he struggled with, and ends with a rather anticlimactic cliffhanger, in which we leave Jonah sulking and angry with God.
I relate a lot to Jonah and I doubt I’m alone in this comparison. Jonah’s struggles are of universal significance to many believers, as we wrestle with God’s plans and struggle to align our wills with His.
1. We run from God when we’d rather not face the truth.
We first meet Jonah when he is commissioned by God to go to Ninevah, and call the people there to repentance. There’s no uncertainty about it; Jonah knew what God was asking Him to do.But it wasn’t something that he wanted to do, so instead of facing it, he ran away.
In fact, he ran as far away as he could get. He hopped on a boat to the Spanish coast which was the extent of the known world at that time. That’s quite a drastic run.
I’ve definitely had situations in my life that I’ve known God is convicting me of, that I knew he wanted me to do something or to stop doing something, and I ignored the call. I heard what He wanted, but because it didn’t fit with my will and my plans, I tried to run away.
Many of us have hopped that boat to the Spanish coast.
I did not know what I wanted to do when I finished my undergraduate studies. For most of that year, God had been working in my heart, guiding me towards a Master's degree in the UK. At first, I was on board; the subject was fascinating and I knew it would allow me to use my degree in the fields I wanted to. But then all the earthly things fell into place; it costs money, it would be another year of penniless student living, it was in a different country, away from my known comfort zone and support network. I ended up putting off the decision until the summer after I’d finished, when I panic-applied to lots of things and got rejected from them all. I tried to run away from where God was calling me. I left the Masters on the back-burner and looked for something else instead. By the end of the summer, God had brought me back to it.
Of course, it’s not necessarily physical places that we try to avoid.
Sometimes we avoid the prodding of the Holy Spirit, as God convicts us of a habitual sin. It’s scarily easy to compartmentalise our thoughts and simply ignore what we don’t want to hear. We are very good at finding excuses for our sins, ignoring what God is telling us and avoiding the truth at all costs.
There is no such thing as a private sin. What is done in secret will affect relationships, interactions and the way we live our lives. We cannot justify our sins any more simply because they’re not clear to those around us. And if we’re honest; many sins are private. Lust, jealousy, greed, pride, and more; all of these can be private thoughts and opinions that we harbour, seemingly to ourselves.
But my thoughts will affect my actions, and my actions impact those around me. So avoiding my sin doesn’t just damage my relationship with God, it also hurts those around me.
But God’s will will be done.
The Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of life, the Saviour of the human race; He is going to accomplish what He sets out to do. What a comfort that is! Nothing can come between what God has planned for me, not even myself.
I think this realisation presents us two choices; we can either lean into and embrace it, revelling in the privilege of participating in God’s plan, or we can sulk on the outside, spectating the unfolding of His glorious plan.
God could have sent someone else to call the Assyrians to Him but He chose Jonah to deliver the message. God doesn’t need us to accomplish His goals, but He invites us to participate with Him, being part of His work. What a privilege that is!
God’s saving work of the Ninevahites “displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry” (Jonah 4:1). He is angry with God and tries to make it an ‘I told you so’ moment, insisting that he had known all along that God wouldn’t follow through with the divine destruction he had foretold.
“I am angry enough to die,” he tells the Lord (4:9).
Don’t we do this too? When life doesn’t go quite as we had planned, we turn our circumstances on God, faulting Him for not working things out how we wanted them to go. We look at those around us and bemoan their seemingly perfect lives. Bitterness takes root and we start to believe the lie that everyone else is experiencing perfect lives, where everything works out great for them and clearly God must have forgotten about or neglected us along the way. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Comparison is the thief of joy. We are angry and dissatisfied with God when we forget that He owes us nothing. We are living and breathing because of His love for us. Who are we to question His ways? He has worked out a plan for each of our lives and we are called to trust that that is the best path by which we most glorify Him. We must seek our satisfaction in Him alone. It’s a difficult but very important lesson.
**
Jonah had a choice; he could participate with God, or he could pout as a distant spectator and then later begrudgingly acknowledge that God’s way is the best.
We too have this choice; we are called to participate with God. God is going to
get what He wants either way, but He still wants us to participate, not
spectate.
2. Our sins hurt those around us.
Jonah brought the sailors on his ship into a life-threatening storm. They started to throw their goods; their livelihoods, overboard in a desperate effort to stay afloat.There is no such thing as a private sin. What is done in secret will affect relationships, interactions and the way we live our lives. We cannot justify our sins any more simply because they’re not clear to those around us. And if we’re honest; many sins are private. Lust, jealousy, greed, pride, and more; all of these can be private thoughts and opinions that we harbour, seemingly to ourselves.
But my thoughts will affect my actions, and my actions impact those around me. So avoiding my sin doesn’t just damage my relationship with God, it also hurts those around me.
3. We act out of duty and obligation but God still uses us.
I really did not want to move to the UK to start that Master's. Even as I was packing to move, I wrestled with God, praying that He’d provide me a way out. I arrived, started the course, found a part-time job and kept wrestling.But God’s will will be done.
The Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of life, the Saviour of the human race; He is going to accomplish what He sets out to do. What a comfort that is! Nothing can come between what God has planned for me, not even myself.
I think this realisation presents us two choices; we can either lean into and embrace it, revelling in the privilege of participating in God’s plan, or we can sulk on the outside, spectating the unfolding of His glorious plan.
God could have sent someone else to call the Assyrians to Him but He chose Jonah to deliver the message. God doesn’t need us to accomplish His goals, but He invites us to participate with Him, being part of His work. What a privilege that is!
4. We turn against God when our plans don’t work out.
In the final chapter of Jonah, we witness Jonah’s anger at God for not carrying out His plan as Jonah had expected. It’s worth remembering; the Assyrians were not Jonah’s people, but a powerful and fearsome neighbour. The resentment he harboured against them likely stemmed from a rather reasonable fear. But it was God’s plan to save them, and as concluded earlier, God’s plans will succeed (and are ultimately for the best).God’s saving work of the Ninevahites “displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry” (Jonah 4:1). He is angry with God and tries to make it an ‘I told you so’ moment, insisting that he had known all along that God wouldn’t follow through with the divine destruction he had foretold.
“I am angry enough to die,” he tells the Lord (4:9).
Don’t we do this too? When life doesn’t go quite as we had planned, we turn our circumstances on God, faulting Him for not working things out how we wanted them to go. We look at those around us and bemoan their seemingly perfect lives. Bitterness takes root and we start to believe the lie that everyone else is experiencing perfect lives, where everything works out great for them and clearly God must have forgotten about or neglected us along the way. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Comparison is the thief of joy. We are angry and dissatisfied with God when we forget that He owes us nothing. We are living and breathing because of His love for us. Who are we to question His ways? He has worked out a plan for each of our lives and we are called to trust that that is the best path by which we most glorify Him. We must seek our satisfaction in Him alone. It’s a difficult but very important lesson.
**
Jonah had a choice; he could participate with God, or he could pout as a distant spectator and then later begrudgingly acknowledge that God’s way is the best.
We too have this choice; we are called to participate with God. God is going to
get what He wants either way, but He still wants us to participate, not
spectate.