A Runaway Prophet and the Love of God

How is your year shaping up so far?

We’re about halfway through, and chances are, the goals and resolutions from January have faded into the background.

A long time ago, I stopped making New Year’s resolutions.

Instead, I focus on setting goals; things to work toward over time. I hand those goals to the Lord, trusting He’ll help make a way through.

But I’ve learned that even when I surrender my goals to the Lord, I can still cling to my own ideas of how things should unfold.

I envision the path, the pace, and even the outcomes. Then I feel confused or discouraged when reality doesn’t match the picture in my mind.

I struggle not to have preconceived ideas about how God will help me reach my goals. Too often, I’ve failed to let Him work out His plans, trying instead to force my own.

As a child, I believed I could excel at any sport or activity; until I learned that success requires more than natural ability.

No, I was not a gymnast, a swimmer, a runner, or a celebrity.

By the time I reached adulthood, I realized I wasn’t “all that and a bag of chips.” Still, I often assumed I knew how a situation would turn out.

When I got married, I was sure I’d be a princess forever (Jamie called me that, after all), until I became a real-life Cinderella, scrubbing toilets.

When I had children, I imagined I’d be the patient, perfect parent, but more often than not, I found myself talking through clenched teeth.

Things weren’t going as planned.

After a few years of disappointment, I began to ask: What if I was wrong?

What if, despite all my fumbling, there’s real value in surrendering to God’s will, especially when it doesn’t make sense?

What if the problem wasn’t my circumstances, but my own prideful thinking and knee-jerk reactions?

I saw myself reflected in the story of Jonah.

Jonah’s Reluctance, and Mine

One thing I appreciate about Jonah is how real he is. He doesn’t hide his feelings. He wears them right on his sleeve, and still, God uses him.

As I read and learned more about Jonah I started to realize that if God could use Jonah, it meant He could use me.

In Jonah 1, God sends Jonah to the ancient city of Nineveh with a message: He wanted Jonah to make a three-day journey inland and proclaim His word to the people there, because God had better things in mind for them than what they were currently living.

He loved even the people of that city.

The problem was the historical hatred that existed between the Jews and the Ninevites, who were Israel’s ancient enemy, the Assyrians. The Ninevites, or Gentiles, were a warring people who periodically

But Jonah couldn’t reconcile God’s love with the historical hatred that existed between the Jews and the Ninevites (Assyrians), who were Israel’s brutal enemies.

The Ninevites had invaded Israel, destroyed villages, and murdered their people. For Jonah, God’s request was unthinkable, so he ran.

God’s Persistent Love

Once Jonah fled, God had a two-fold problem on His hands: an unrepentant city and a runaway prophet.

Jonah took refuge on a ship sailing for far-away lands and hid, but he ended up being thrown overboard and then swallowed by a large fish.

What living in a fish’s gut is like is not something I care to think about, the very lightest whiff of “fish smell” makes my stomach turn.

God held on to Jonah in the belly of that fish, and in the same way, He holds on to us. He used many adverse circumstances to “corner” the runaway prophet and get his attention.

Had Jonah just obeyed, he could’ve avoided a lot of trouble.

Just like me. In my lifetime, I could have avoided many adverse circumstances by simply obeying.

Instead, I found myself wrapped up in attention-getters of my own making.

Even when Jonah finally went to Nineveh, he did so with an attitude.

Jonah’s Reluctant Obedience

It took a lot for Jonah to respond to God. Even when he finally did respond to God and go to Nineveh to give Nineveh God’s message, He did it with an attitude.

Nineveh was a vast city. In Jonah 3:3, it states that the city was so large it took three days to travel across it.

The exact mileage is uncertain, but we can be fairly sure it was substantial in size.

This meant that Jonah had a significant task in proclaiming God’s message. He couldn’t just deliver it quietly at a corner in an obscure neighborhood, it had to be preached.

As I think about it, he must have taken several days to spread the message that unless the city repented, it would be overthrown (Jonah 3:4).

Can you imagine him looking at the people in that place?

We might believe that Jonah was simply disobedient because of how the Ninevites had plundered his people.

Have you ever considered that he might have experienced some of the raids of Nineveh on his people, and it’s even possible that Jonah himself lost family members to this warring group of people?

The Bible doesn’t record more than Jonah’s anger against the people for all the atrocities they committed, but one wonders, had Jonah been hurt? Had he lost loved ones? Friends? It was to these people he hated that he was called.

We Are Called, Too

As Jonah was, so are we. We are called to this world. The unforgiving, unashamed, hard-hearted, hurtful, mixed-up, and angry world.

Those who have hurt us, those who don’t help us, those who oppose our beliefs, those who don’t care when we are wronged, these are the ones we are called to.

Which school do you choose?

And like with Jonah, the choice is ours; do we choose the school of the storms and fish or the school of God’s aggressive love?

Nineveh Responds

Let’s pick up the story here in Jonah 3 when Jonah had finally come to his senses and decided to obey God:

Jonah 3:5-10 NKJ
“⁵So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. ⁶Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. ⁷And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying,

Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. ⁸But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. ⁹Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?

¹⁰Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”

Why Is God So Forgiving?

Why is God so forgiving? In the Old Testament, we see God extending His love to a group of people who were pagan, ancient enemies of Israel; people whom the Jewish people considered outside of God’s realm of grace.

So much for God loving one group of people more than another. He has always loved this world and sought to bring His message to all who will listen.

It is God’s people who have, more often than not, refused to undertake God’s mission to reach the world. Perhaps the school of “storms and fish” is a school that more of us have had to attend than we care to admit.

Jonah’s Anger at God’s Compassion

Even having gone through the school of “storms and fish,” Jonah begrudges God’s love for the people of Nineveh:

Jonah 4:1-4 NKJ
“But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. ²So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. ³Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”

⁴Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Angry Enough to Die

The account goes on with God’s teaching Jonah about forgiveness and compassion. From this scene, Jonah stomps off to a distant part of the city to see what would happen (maybe he was hoping God would relent and destroy the people anyway).

God planted some kind of plant/tree to give him shade, but then sent an insect or worm to destroy it. Jonah, then, was angry over the death of the tree. God questions Jonah if it was right to be angry over something like the tree, and Jonah says, “Yes! Even angry enough to die!”

God cornered Jonah by saying that if Jonah pitied a plant he hadn’t planted and had withered in a night, why not pity people who are of much greater value?

Jonah 4:11 NKJ
“And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left – and much livestock?”

Infected with a Virus

God’s love is so powerful, so aggressive that nothing can stop it. No one can stand in its way.

But Jonah’s life compass was off, and he couldn’t get a grip on the love of God. He was so wound up in his hate of this group of people that his sense of direction was gone.

It was then that God had to “erase his hard drive” and start all over with him. This is the power of God’s great love: He loved Nineveh, that reprobate city, and He loved Jonah, the unforgiving, runaway prophet.

I once had a laptop that was infected with viruses…

Sometimes that is what happens to us. We’re infected with a virus from this world, and our hard drives need to be reformatted.

I Know, Mom!

Our plans don’t always pan out in the way we foresee. Often, this is because we haven’t surrendered our will and plans to God…Once our plans become His, we are set onto a playing field that God can use.

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT “‘For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’”

This is a very well-known verse; many of us can even quote it. However, as we quote, we’re often so busy trying to map out our paths that we have forgotten that the Director knows the way.

We reckon that with our wisdom, we know the way, but more often than not, we don’t.

As a parent, there have been many times I’ve tried to instruct my kids to do various chores or help with homework.

Often, my assistance has been requested by them. When I finally get up from my “unimportant” chores, like paying bills or cooking dinner, to help them, I am met with,“Oh I know, I know, Mom.”

Bewildered, I pull back and ask, “If you already knew, then why are you asking for my help?”

Math has been a tricky subject for all of my kids. Its logic has often eluded them. I would do everything to try to help when things became frustrating for them.

What it came down to most of the time wasn’t their inability to count, add, or subtract, but their rushing through the work so they could do what they thought was more important.

When their papers were marked with numerous corrections, tears and anger would result. Sad to see them sad, I would try to help them, and in their frustration, they would shoo me away, saying, “I know, Mom, I know!”

There’s nothing like being told you know nothing when you know that you know something.

Without doubt, my children had some knowledge about their math assignments but that knowledge wasn’t proving sufficient to get the correct answer. Knowledge without the right process of applying it won’t produce needed results. Besides, no one likes a “know it all.”

1 Corinthians 8:1b NLT “…Yes, we all know that ‘we all have knowledge’ about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.”

I Am Like My Kids

We are so like our own kids in our relationship with our Father God.

I can picture myself in the middle of a “life test” and failing miserably and not understanding why.

In my frustration, I call on my Father, and as He tries to help me, I push Him away, saying defiantly, “I know, I know!”

Then I picture Him standing back, just as I do with my own kids, wishing I would let Him help.

The wonder of living life in the love of God is knowing that He will hold the pieces together, and we don’t have to.

We don’t have to know everything because He is our Father and always has our best interests at heart. He is capable of guiding us when we don’t understand, and He is capable of saving us when no one (not even ourselves) can.

Hebrews 11:40 NLT “Because God had provided something better in mind for us, so they would not reach perfection without us.”

God Has Something Better in Mind

The crux of the matter is this: God, our Father, has something so much better in mind for us, it’s better than our best.

God supersedes everyone in that not only does He promise to give us the best (because He is the best), but He also has the power to deliver the best.

What God has in mind is so good that those heroes of faith mentioned in the earlier portion of Hebrews 11 couldn’t reach perfection (or completion) without our cooperation with the plans and mind of God for our lives.

Consider this gallery of faith-mentors cheering for us from the grandstands of heaven: Moses, David, Samson, Rahab, Gideon, Samuel, Barak, the list goes on and their perfection or completion is seen in us, in our aligning ourselves with His plans and not our own because God’s kingdom is an everlasting kingdom that is always expanding.

We’ve just picked up where those who have gone before us left off.

Hebrews 12 goes on to say that because all these are cheering for us, since they “surround us,” we need to run with endurance.

We need to bear up with the correcting of our course, with that discipline when it comes. They are shouting, “Don’t run away to the school of storms and fish!”

Their lessons, and Jonah’s, teach us to obey at the first word, don’t wait, or we will learn like they did, the hard way.

Hebrews 12:12,13 NLT “So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.”

It’s Time to Get a Grip

It’s time to shake off the pain, put a little band-aid on there, and get a new grip.

As it was with Jonah, that fierce love, that aggressive love of God, is meant to flow through you and not sit stagnant within you.

This aggressive love will bring the expansion of the Kingdom to those who remain outside, to those of Nineveh.

Perhaps they will repent. Perhaps they will turn from their sin and to God.

Perhaps, just perhaps, through our surrender, we can see God’s plan for them (what He has in mind that is so much better for them) unfold.

Get a grip! Lift up your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees, and take courage!

God has better things in mind for us than to sit angrily under a tree that will wither.

Our destinies have farther-reaching implications than we ever imagined. We’re all more like Jonah than we realize, but the good news is this: he, along with many others who’ve crossed that boundary before us, is cheering for us. Jonah made it, and so will we.

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