The Story of Jonah Revisited (A Testimony), And why our Lives will get Complicated when we Decide to Disobey the will of God

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Jon 1:1-4 

No, God is not complicated. But we are. And to the extent to which we make our lives complicated, to that extent will our God also seem complicated to us. Jonah might have made his life very easy once. But he disobeyed God. And his life got complicated.

And sin always does that. It complicates life.

Jonah had to make hasty travel arrangements. He had to raise his fare very fast, probably by disposing one of his possessions. He had to pack. He had to leave. So at the harbor he paid his fare. He got into the ship and the ship took off. But he didn’t complete his journey. Instead he raised a storm in the ship and in other peoples’ lives. So he chose to disembark in the middle of the ocean, and his money went to waste, and probably his luggage.

But even in his complications God had mercy upon him. He saved him from drowning, although he had to suffer the indignity of taking a ride in the belly of ‘a great fish’, and which also became his lodging for three days and three nights. And after all that trouble he still had to do God’s will – the very thing he was escaping from in the first place! It wasn’t God but Jonah who complicated his own life.

And perhaps if we are honest, we will admit that we knew, like Jonah, what God’s will was upon our lives right from the beginning – but we fled!

Knowing God’s will is a personal journey. It begins in childhood, for that is when we first detected the strong pull of wrong versus right, and of evil against good. From very early on I was very conscious of that. When I did something good my life shone like the sun, but when I did something wrong, suddenly the whole sky above me went dark. I understand now that was God speaking to me through my conscience, for he is ‘the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ (John 1:9). But the rebelliousness in me prevented me from becoming his son then (John 1:12).

So how did I get saved? How did I accept God? How did I know his will? I suffered a crisis. And in that crisis (a stroke at 37) and alone in a hospital bed I knew God. I understood then that that was really his will for me since I was a child. He wanted me to live my life led by him. And that is the whole point of our rebellion. I refused. But my life only got harder!

So I got found at last (Amazing Grace!). What did I learn? That God speaks to us from childhood. We know it but we deny it (Rom 1:18-20). But God does not give up. He follows us like he followed Jonah. That God allows crises in our lives because that is the only time we are ‘forced’ to hear him. My old life consisted in running away from him – like Jonah. Until I landed in that hospital ward, and in one long night I heard him. That hospital ward was Jonah’s great fish belly for me. I accepted God’s will. For Jonah, if it was not the storm, and the great fish belly, and if it was not for God not giving up on him, he should have been lost to the world. For me if it had not been for that stroke, I should never have been saved.

God is still speaking to us to know his will. God has never given up. His love cannot him allow him to. Even now millions are getting saved through this crisis, as God is silently conducting a revival while all the churches are closed. Millions will date this Corona pandemic as their turning point in life. Millions are being born again today without the benefit of the altar call. God made his will known to us, if we are honest to admit it, from childhood. But now in the storm, in the great fish belly or hospital ward, God is still making his will known today. One can come to him through the easy way, like the Ethiopian eunuch, or the hard way, like Jonah. Further disobedience is not worth it. It will only make life harder. But life will become very easy if we give up. O God open our eyes today, that we might see you!

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21/06/20

The Story of Jonah and the Meaning of God’s Will

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. Jon 1:2-3 

One can never quite run away from God’s will. But that is only one of the wonderful lessons in this fascinating story of one man’s will against that of God. Jonah is a complex character. And may this be an inspiration to all the people who are called ‘complex’ by other people – or who unflatteringly consider themselves as too complicated. May they know that God can still use them so they have no excuse!

Jonah’s ideals were shaped early by the writings of his religious leaders concerning the one true God – and the only God of the Israel nation. Jonah’s thinking was firmly rooted here. God could only be one thing and nothing else. And that was the genesis of Jonah’s complication.

God hated Israel’s enemies, and God fought for his people Israel. The Assyrians of Nineveh were such one enemies of Israel. They were cruel and bloodthirsty hounds. But now Jonah was reading ‘mischief’ in the character of God, in his desire to bring salvation to Israel’s chief enemies. Jonah, being fixed in his beliefs since childhood, decided to refuse to obey this of God’s latest proclamations. He decided to flee to Tarshih in a place he thought was in the furthest parts of the world. But Jonah had not reckoned for the humanistic side of God (yes God can be extremely humorous too). So God decides to follow Jonah to the furthest parts of the world (perhaps he had not read Deuteronomy 30:4 which says:  If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee). And from there it becomes like a battle of wits between Jonah and the God of Israel. Who will win? The answer is obvious of course. Jonah knows that but he is also determined to make his point! But in the end the will of God is done – as it always has. But even after he sees the results with his own eyes it doesn’t please Jonah. Instead it leaves him bitter than before…in fact so bitter he desires to die there and then – and he lets God know that! (Jonah 4:6-8).

In the end Jonah’s lesson is on dangers of ‘fixing’ God. It may be a dangerous thing sometimes to fix God in one locality, one thinking, one day, or one method. Another fascinating book full of complex characters I want to refer to is Job. Job’s friends were not only heavy intellectuals (as Job himself was), but they were also perilously fixed in one reading of God’s face. They knew God avenged wicked people (by taking away their wealth as in Job’s case, and he made the good guys very rich). It was the way God had dealt with his people in his writings in all generations. So Job was a hypocrite and that is why God was punishing him. But they were wrong. They had fixed God but God is never fixed. He does what pleases him. And so again God never ceases in his surprises, for in the end he reprimands Job’s friends while he preserves his mercy for Job. Truly God is no respecter of persons.

A third character who I consider complex is Peter. It is amazing that God picked him as a leader amongst all his disciples. Why didn’t God pick on a ‘safe’ character like Philip? But that is God, no one can fix him in one type of thinking, and he surprises us every day on that – as he surprised Peter in his new ‘will’ (Acts 10). So what is God saying in all these things? I believe it is that God can set aside his known ‘will’ at any one time and introduce a completely new way of thinking for us. Would we be ready to accept such a thing? Secondly, God is saying that sometimes it is through a vision that he makes his will known, or through a Spirit (Acts 10:19) – and not necessarily through what ‘the letter’ says (2Co 3:6). But either way God will and does make his will known at all times, whether it will please us or not. Sometimes he surprises us from our thinking, so it good to remember that. Nevertheless God will never deviate from his nature as he has founded it for us in his holy word. The moral law of God is still as valid for us today as it was in the beginning. God grant us the courage to accept that every day you are creating a new thing in our lives – and sometimes even when it goes against our core beliefs, or what is written down. Give us the perception which can only come from you, O God, to understand these things, for without faith we know that it impossible to please you O God.