Jonah, Me, and a Whale of a Tale

 Wise King Solomon said that it is the small foxes that spoil the vine (Song of Solomon 2:15) . I know that it is the truth. I believe like Jonah, I have sin in my heat, it is a small, dark spot, but if when Jesus comes to remove it, I resist, it becomes larger and wider. The Ninevites were Israel’s enemies who fought and enslaved them brutally. So when God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh, he honestly had, in his mind, valid reasons not to go. But his prejudice against the Ninevites and resistance of God’s call, begins a process of alarming proportions. His sin of ethnocentrism and hatred cause him to lose perspective –the perspective of mercy.

I, too, like Jonah believe I have a right to resist God’s call on my life to love the ungodly, especially those who have been unkind to me. Listen to what God tells Jonah, “ But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty  thousand people who cannot tell their hand from their left hand, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11). I can be like Jonah more concerned my comfort than things of eternal value. Jonah cared more about the vine which sheltered him from the sun and the east wind.

When I am in the midst of a battle with God, like Jonah, I won’t win either. My life will be “destroy[ed] like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind” (Psalm 48:7). Lately, I have battled with the desire to do things my way, but I do not want to be like those broken boats of Tarshish. You know Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish" (Jonah 1:3), but he landed in the belly of a whale where he cried,

“You hurled me into the depths,
   into the very heart of the seas,
   and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
   swept over me.
⁴ I said, ‘I have been banished
   from your sight;
yet I will look again
   toward your holy temple.’
⁵ The engulfing waters threatened me,^[b]
   the deep surrounded me;
   seaweed was wrapped around my head.
⁶ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
   the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, LORD my God,
   brought my life up from the pit.

 ⁷ “When my life was ebbing away,
   I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
   to your holy temple.
 ⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
   turn away from God’s love for them. ⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
   will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
   I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’”

Jonah learned what I have learned recently, those worthless idols, the things I put above my allegiance and obedience to God, my preferences and my unrefined desires, cause me to turn away from God's unfailing. I have finally realized that the only thing that can separate me from His love is me. Not past, present, future, hardship, persecution, or disappointment if I wont let it (Romans 8:35-39). In fact, some versions of scriptures asks,Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?(Romans 8:35) I alone must choose to walk away from His embrace or at least I try, but like Jonah, God finds me where I have been hiding. Just as He searched for His first children, Adam and Eve, as they hid in the garden covering themselves with fig leaves, He still searches for me and you. And when we are ready, He puts back on dry land just as He did Jonah (Jonah 2:10)

Signing off,
MJ