Unshackled Moments ~ October 12 ~ Jonah's Solution Shouldn't Be Ours

Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?” - for the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”

- Jonah 1:10-12

I read the book of Jonah again this morning, it's short, only four chapters. As happens from time to time, I realized some things that I had not noticed or thought about the first however many times I have read this portion of Scripture. I have at times related to Jonah since he too ran from the calling of God on his life, nearly got himself killed and found himself spared miraculously, but I always felt like a minor leaguer looking at a man who made the MLB post season and saying we were both baseball players. True, but not the same.

This morning though I saw through the man of the Bible aspect of Jonah to the truth that he was more like me, and perhaps you, than we may have ever thought. There are parallels throughout the four chapters that I will be chewing on personally for a while, but there is one thing I noticed this morning that I see too common in the lives of people who believe in God, especially those in rebellion or who are actively fleeing a call to relationship and service. The common core here inspired me to share on this for today's Unshackled Moment.

Jonah was a mess who was called of God. I believe more of us can relate to a man like this than say someone with the steadfast, seemingly fearless, faith of an Elijah. He was sent by God to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, long time enemies of Israel and probably the most powerful country in the world at that time since they defeated Babylon. Jonah didn't want to go there. He didn't want to preach repentance or relationship with God to these gentiles, his enemies. Jonah earned himself the distinction of being the only prophet in recorded Scripture who says no and defies God when called to serve. It doesn't mean he's the only one, just that he's the only one who made the book with it.

So God sends a storm to stop his escape from the call and the manifestation of God's presence. Jonah couldn't outrun God's true presence, but he could flee the awareness of it, the reminder of Jerusalem. He couldn't flee the need to love and serve God, but he could also try to put it out of mind by getting as far from where he should be as possible. The city he was sailing to was on the opposite side of the sea from the land where he was told to go.

Storms happen. Not every storm is from God, but when we run from God we are going to encounter some serious storms in our life. This is because when we run to God, when we don't run, basically when we breathe in and out, we are going to encounter storms. Storms are a part of life, and even the perfect Jesus ran into a few significant storms during His days on earth.  But when we are running from God the storms are different, or at least feel that way, because we are different. We are out there, battered and blown about, without our refuge and our protector, and we have cut ourselves off from the power that is greater than we are and which give us peace, strength to endure, and wisdom. We are left to our own devices, thinking and reactions to deal with what's going on, and that's usually what got us in the mess in the first place.

Sometimes God does send the storm to remind us that we have left the place we need to be, sometimes the storms are simply the effect of our choices. God didn't send me to prison, but He did allow me to suffer the consequences of my own will and way and use that time to redirect me back towards Him and the path I had fled. Sometimes the storms really have nothing to do with us, as life happens, but our reactions are still to take it personally because when we are running from God, we tend to filter everything through our selfish narcissism and guilt.We know we're not treating our relationship with God right, so He must be displeased and angry and therefore want to punish us. So of course He caused me to have that flat tire in the middle of the thunderstorm or whatever.

The storm raged, and the sailors feared. It became clear to them all, including Jonah, that his running was the reason for the danger. If you, Dear Reader, are also familiar with the story, you may have, like me, either read over or listened to this part without thinking about it at all or assuming that it was God's will that Jonah be fed to the fish. There is actually no indication that this was in any way God's will. Did He allow it? Yes. Did He move to make it work for His will and glory? Sure did. He even provided a way for it to be used as a metaphor for His salvation through Jesus and what the Son would experience. But nowhere in the Bible does it say God wanted Jonah thrown into the sea or fed to the fish to teach him anything. We just assume that, because we are too much like Jonah, and this situation was all Jonah's solution.

God didn't tell Jonah how to stop the storm. We are told other times God spoke to Jonah, but here no such thing is said. We are simply told in verse 12 of chapter 1 that Jonah told them that if he were thrown overboard the storm would cease. The fact that when Jonah hit the waves God honored what he had spoken does not mean that was God's will for Jonah. God had proclaimed that Nineveh would be overthrown, but when they repented he relented and spared them. That was a gentile city, and was the capital city of a nation that was the enemy of God's chosen nation. Yet, God responded to their repentance. How much more had Jonah repented of his running and rebellion would God have responded with mercy?

Maybe Jonah did what he thought would be best and nobly sacrificed himself to spare the others. Maybe he was miserable and depressed and stuck in woe is me mode and wanted to die. There is some indication he responded to most things that didn't go his way with wanting to die.  Which brings me to the possibility that this was still more running and rebellion and that he would rather die than repent and go to Nineveh.  Maybe he didn't even see repentance as an option and felt he had messed up too much and it was too late to turn back to God. Regardless of why, and it could be a combination of things, including things not on this list, he didn't hit his knees and repent. He told the sailors to throw him into the sea to die.

Far too often God speaks to us and we rebel, disobey, make a choice to ignore the voice or even to run. It may not be on as grand a scale as being told to preach repentance to our enemy that may very well kill us for trying, maybe it's something as small as to give someone in need a few bucks worth of food or even something as cheap as an encouraging and caring smile. But no. We refuse for whatever reason to walk with, submit to and obey the will of God for that moment or period of time. It may be five seconds or five decades, but we are running from the call to love and serve by saying no to God.

Then regret sets in. And we throw ourselves into the sea because we feel we should be punished. We want to deserve to not feel guilty anymore or we simply despair of living through another failure and wish it all over and done with. If we, in those moments, or Jonah were the star of the story of the prodigal son, when we saw the father leap off the porch and run to embrace us and rejoice over our return, we would flee the reunion. Spotting him, we would turn from the path that led to the house, run to the barn and try to have the stalls all mucked and clean of manure before he reached us.

But God didn't ask us to clean out the stalls of our life before we get our welcome back hug, and He didn't ask us to throw ourselves into the sea or onto our sword to pay for our foolishness, mistakes or rebellion either. All He ever wanted us to do was to leave the pig pen and head home, to stop or determine to change course with the next port or passing ship and go and do what He asked. He even went as far as to tell us that He considers the child who says no to what is asked but later repents and does it faithful.

It's too easy to look at Jonah and see that running from God has a price with a hefty punishment. It does, but Jesus paid that price with the rest of our sin. God doesn't demand payment from us before we can turn back to obedience and relationship. He's the loving Father on the porch searching for signs of our return so that He can love on us and rejoice. We need to stop throwing ourselves into the seas of our storms.



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