When Jonah Ran
The story of Jonah reveals so much about the character of God. We learn about the great extent of God’s mercy and forgiveness – not only toward Jonah, but also toward the Assyrian Empire. We see His justice and righteousness as he sends Jonah to a people to tell them to repent because their wickedness has come up before him. We see God’s authority and power as he creates the storm that eventually causes Jonah to get cast into the sea. And we see his sovereignty as he accomplishes his purposes, even if he has to use a reluctant prophet to do it.
The First Message
God’s calling to Jonah to go and preach a message of repentance in Nineveh wasn’t his first mission. Jonah lived in a time when the nation of Israel had been split into two kingdoms; the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Jonah lived in the north. The northern kingdom had been led by thirteen consecutive kings that did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and as a result of their consistent disobedience, they were suffering. God had every right to punish them, but he saw their suffering and was merciful. This is where Jonah first appears in the Bible.
2 Kings 14:25-27 Jeroboam II recovered the territories of Israel between Lebo-hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had promised through Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher. For the LORD saw the bitter suffering of everyone in Israel, and that there was no one in Israel, slave or free, to help them. And because the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel completely, he used Jeroboam II, son of Jehoash, to save them.
Like Jonah, sometimes we love God’s messaging. After all, the Bible is good news, filled with great and precious promises! But a pursuit of God doesn’t always serve up the message we want to hear. Sometimes God calls us out of our comfort zones.
The Second Message
Jonah’s next calling from God was a different matter altogether. This time God wasn’t calling him to give another message to the Israelites – but instead to a pagan, Gentile city.
Jonah 1:1-2 The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.
This time Jonah was called to be the bearer of bad news. Instead of responding in obedience, Jonah ran – in the exact opposite direction of God’s calling!
Like Jonah, sometimes we push against God’s messaging and we want to run. We want to accept the good news and reject the bad. We pursue God on our own terms, and when we don’t like what we hear, we run. And like Jonah, we can always find a boat going in the wrong direction.
Collateral Damage
Consider the scene from the sailors’ perspective. They didn’t invite Jonah onto their boat or into their story; he just showed up. Little did they know that this disobedient prophet would cause them great material and emotional loss, even to the point of risking their lives.
The Providence of God
The story of Jonah is a tale of incredible miracles, and here’s the most shocking one: a changed life. The sailors didn’t know God at the beginning of the story, and by the end they’re offering him a sacrifice of praise. Notice that they didn’t make a vow to God if he would deliver them; they did it because he had already done it.
Romans 8:28 (NLT) And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
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