Today, I want to share a few lessons from the
life of Jonah (Chapter 1). First, the story very briefly and then the lessons I
learnt from it.
Jonah was a prophet of Israel during
the reign of King Jeroboam II. His commission,
was to convey a message from God to the people of Nineveh.
The Assyrians who were
barbarians noted for their brutality,had by then destroyed the entire northern
kingdom of Israel. The book of Jonah begins with a command from God,
to Jonah, to go to Nineveh and prophesy to its wicked inhabitants. But Jonah was
not overly enthusiastic about this assignment; in fact he was reluctant to go, not only because he knew that
they would laugh at him, but he also greatly feared
that they would kill him if he went and preached to them. It is easy to
understand his reluctance, if we visualize ourselves in an identical situation. Imagine, if God were to tell us today, 'I'm
going to bring terrible judgment on Pakistan. I want you to go to there and
tell the terrorists to repent.' Just think about it… They would chop off our
head in 2 minutes. Our first response then, would be to flee as far away as
possible.
Jonah also had
another selfish motive in running away from his assignment. He wanted God’s
judgement to fall on the Assyrians in Nineveh and see them destroyed even as
they had destroyed his beloved Israel.
So, Jonah, headed in the opposite direction to a place called
Tarshish. Nineveh was about 500 miles to the east of Israel and Tarshish was
about 2500 miles to the west, on the coast of what is currently Spain. Jonah was wasting his time and money to do something
he was not supposed to be doing, rather than investing these resources to do
the thing that God was calling him to do.
Isn’t it strange that a prophet like Jonah imagined that he could
escape God and his assignment by running away to Tarshish?
To continue with
the story, Jonah was now on the ship, sleeping blissfully.
All the while the ship sailed smoothly over the sea, Jonah
forgot all about God and his assignment. But then God sent a fierce storm and
the ship was on the verge of being broken to pieces. While Jonah was
surprisingly still asleep below the deck of the ship, the sailors tried to do
everything within their power to save the ship. They threw out the excess
baggage and even cried out to their
gods for help. Then the sailors
cast lots to determine who was the cause of their misfortune, and not
surprisingly, Jonah’s name came up. Knowing full well that he was the root cause of all the
trouble, Jonah offers to be
chucked overboard. And so, the sailors reluctantly threw him overboard.
Now Jonah’s very life was in
danger.
Did Jonah deserve to escape from the situation? No: But the Lord "provided a large fish to swallow
up Jonah and bring him safely ashore.
So what are the
lessons that we can take from this story?
1. We serve a God of second
chances. In this book we see God who
is revealed not so much as powerful and mighty, but as a loving and caring God who
wants to extend his grace towards everyone. Jonah did
not want the Ninevites to escape the wrath of God. Jonah’s hatred for Nineveh was probably greater than his
love for God and that is what ultimately caused him to disobey God. But God loved these Ninevites, even though Jonah hated them.
And I sometimes think that there is an awful lot of Jonah in us. It is
funny how sometimes we want God’s grace for
ourselves when we sin and fall short but we do not want God to extend the same
grace to others when they fall short. We forget the fact that we serve a God
who loves each of us equally and unconditionally: He cannot love me more if I
do something good or less if I sin and fall short.
2. Are we on the right boat. Like Jonah, there are times when we go to great
lengths to do the things that we are not supposed to do rather than the things
that God is calling us to do.
Jonah was in the wrong place with the
wrong set of people. For, though the sailors needed to be on the ship on account of
their work, Jonah had no business being on board with them. He was supposed to
be in Nineveh doing the work that God had assigned to him. So he found himself
in the middle of a storm caused by his own rebellion, which affected not only
him but also the sailors on the ship.
When we are in a place other than where God intends for us
to be, he can cause a storm to shake up our life and bring us back on track. Though
the storm may have been intended for us, our friends, family or acquaintances
could also be affected. Then they would be left with no other option but to
throw us out of their life.
3.
Be careful about who is travelling with you in your boat. The reverse of the above statement also holds true. We can be a Jonah or we can have a Jonah with
us. The sailors were affected by the storm meant for Jonah and as soon as they
threw him out, the storm was stilled. Note, they were reluctant to chuck him
out in the beginning, but when the fury of the storm kept increasing, they had
to throw him out. Is there a Jonah in our boat? Someone or something (it could
be anything- a relationship, an attachment, a person, an emotion) that is
causing a storm to brew in our life? Then, don’t hold on. We need to let go,
before we become victims of a storm not intended for us.
4.
God’s provision does not always come gift wrapped per our
specifications. Sometimes we fail to recognize a provision because it was not
what we expected. The fish may have been smelly and dirty; but it was really a provision from God
for Jonah’s escape. Had God not send the big fish at the right time, Jonah would surely have perished. But did Jonah see it as a provision. No, .
Not immediately. To him it appeared to be more of a problem than a solution. But when God put Jonah in the belly of the
fish, we see him repenting and getting back on track to achieve God’s purpose. That might not have
happened if he had been rescued by a big
comfortable ship. Many times, we see too
see God’s provision as a problem. But what we need to remember is that God does
not work as per our specifications. He has his own reasons for doing something.
He may put us in an uncomfortable place for a while to reroute us and point us in the right
direction, so that we can achieve the purpose for which he has called us.
