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.

DO YOU DESIRE TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD IN YOUR LIFE? THE TRUTH IS THAT IT SHOULDN’T BE A MATTER WHICH BRINGS SUCH DREAD IN OUR HEARTS!

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Rom 12:2 

Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Heb 13:21 

Yes, few subjects are as scary as the desire to know the will of God in one’s life. But the truth is that, when all things are considered, it shouldn’t. Because one, life is serious and it is never simple. It is only easy while we are still young and when we have to depend on others to make decisions on our behalf. And it is only after we have grown up and left the safe shelter of our parents that we discover just how rough the terrain called life is…when we entered school for the first time, when we met other children like us – we detected it in the bullying we received at some unpleasant kids, who made great fun of us, who laughed at us and called us very unpleasant names. We also detected it earlier when we became sick and we were taken to somebody strange called a doctor…and nurses who caused us great pain through injections! We detected it earlier too in some adults, probably our own parents, our relatives, our neighbours, our friends and our teachers. So from very early we have known that life isn’t easy, and never will.

That’s probably the way of God to make us reflect, think, and importantly (and perhaps the hardest), to decide. But some people paused – and they paused permanently from early on in their lives. They were unable to decide for themselves. So unconsciously they surrendered their lives to others to think for them, may be a guardian, parent, teacher but mostly friends. Very few of us have surrendered their troubles to God from early on. Yet he has been there since we were children waiting for us to ask him to show us the right way. Imagine the peace which we should have enjoyed from very early on if only we had known! How much money should we have saved, or how many troubles? So we plodded on sometimes in total darkness about what was the right thing to do – for we didn’t believe God in the first place. And therefore mistakes happened and they just went on happening in our lives until now.

But thanks be to God because he has never quite given up on us! He was there in the beginning and he is still there today, and he will be there tomorrow, and in eternity. He is there always waiting to hear someone answer his knock, even now. But why do we fear to be associated with God so much? What drives our dread? Is it something we have heard of him, or is it something we have experienced of him? Chiefly the main reason why we fear him is because we fear losing our independence. And we are born with a hard heart more given to rebelliousness than obedience. We detected this even as earlier as we were still children. We hated being told what to do, wear this, don’t wear that, comb that hair, go there, we didn’t even love the names we were given at birth, we changed them.

Sometimes we hated God simply because our parents drummed God down our throats since we were children. Their portrait of God wasn’t one to drum up love in our hearts. The God they drew up to us almost resembled a dictator. He was ruthless, eagerly waiting on the margins of our lives to just make one mistake, and then he pounced on us with bloodletting fury and hailstones. He wasn’t a God of mercy. He rejoiced over our failures. He magnified them until they became like an ogre in our lives. We grew up with that picture. In one day alone the word hell was dropped about ten times. That is the picture of God most have up to this day. But I am here to tell you that that picture is from hell and not from heaven! It is the devil!

But you can begin now to trust this God. It is not easy, after all the years of mistrust, but try him and see whether he is faithful or not. Don’t be afraid. Ask God for forgiveness. He does it so wonderfully beautiful! How ugly have your sins been like? What is the worst colour you can associate with them, black or red? God promises he will make your heart white as snow. He will take away the heaviness and leave your heart feeling as light as wool (Isaiah 1:18). You can believe that today and be free forever. And who knows whether that is not the will of God for you today? Oh God help our unbelief!

REALISM OR IDEALISM? FINALLY IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO THE ELUSIVE NATURE OF FREEDOM!

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Joh 8:36  

Freedom is a wonderful thing. It is not easy to give up when it has been acquired. But freedom is also slippery. It can get so fluid for example until one loses the sense of right or wrong – or until it has slipped into a form of very subtle bondage. The prodigal won his freedom once. But it was also his greatest ruin. Such are the complex nuances which constitute the meaning of freedom. The redemption of the children of Israel from Egypt may just be one of the nuances. The surface meaning is easy to infer. But the deeper undertones may easily pass undetected. Metaphorically it is an exercise that takes labour and hard days just to dig it up or experience it fully. It is not a fancied exercise at all, and it may even sound boring. ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart’ (Jer 29:13).  ‘I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word’ (Psa 119:58).  

The prodigal’s freedom was cheaply acquired, and it deserted him just as suddenly. He had paid nothing for it, and he had no reference point or experience on how to make use of it before that. The value of hard work was lost on him. His life had never understood patience. He had just grown up in his father’s house where everything had been provided for him, including his inheritance. But that is not how God wants his people to earn their freedom! It might have been easy, and very easy indeed, to have just made his people cross over to the Promised Land from Egypt in one day. But picture what they would have lost, the whole experience of forty years! They should never have understood God’s faithfulness or power. They should never have learnt the expensive lesson of patience, of trusting God, of waiting, of the meaning of faith and of the invaluable lessons of pain and suffering. (The things God is teaching us through this Covid19 for example should probably serve us well for the next 100 years. There is almost a four hundred year period of relapse afterwards, a period of forgetting). They should’ve earned their freedom very cheaply and they should’ve lost it very shortly indeed. They should hardly have acquired the full taste of it in their mouths before it should’ve evaporated. Their children should never have had a reference point, no songs to remember by, no writings to refer to, no lives to draw strength from and no witnesses! In short they should’ve gained nothing, no history, no identity and no inheritance! And that is not the way of love. It’s sheer cruelty instead. Indeed they should’ve gone back to Egypt (and slavery) the following day! And it is the same way God behaved towards Adam. Had he given him absolute freedom without any rules Adam (and us) should’ve remained at one stage of ‘development’ all his life. And that is slavery of the worst kind! And certainly it is not the way God acts with those he loves. He cares for the end results. That is why he dwells too long on the lessons.

And so is the freedom which God gives. It is not a one day event but an eternal one. Lies have a very short shelf life, and one always pays dearly in the end for all the gifts from the devil. That was the lesson of the prodigal. For it wasn’t long before ‘he began to be in want’, and the devil’s trick always ends like that – it is usually one unending trip of wants! ‘Sir,’ cried the woman, ‘[G]ive me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw!’ The devil’s tales always begin very sweetly, very swiftly, and very big. It is hard to resist the freedom he lays out initially, very hard in fact, that few have successfully resisted him! You may be in trenches right now but hold out for a while. Don’t give place for a sweet tale just now! What you aim for is too precious to settle for anything so cheap! God’s way may be long but in the end he delivers what he promised. He doesn’t deny the desert place. He doesn’t deny the sun and the thirst and the long trek. But God never departs from his promises from the beginning up to the end. His promises are dearly purchased, that is why he wouldn’t settle for cheap.

So how does true freedom resemble like? True freedom may involve rejecting what at first seems like true freedom. True freedom may sometimes involve emptying one’s life completely of what one may have accumulated for years. Sometimes true freedom may only begin to become apparent once the room has been reduced to its barest minimum – until one even begins to suspect he is a pauper! True freedom takes great courage. Because it may involve rejecting a well-trodden path for a completely new one! And the sudden plunging into it may actually make the whole difference! So what sort of freedom would you rather have?

God is wonderful. He even gives us the freedom to reject his freedom! Who else can give a person the opportunity to reason with him like that – sometimes almost to the degree of becoming a nuisance to him - and yet he doesn’t give up! For me, that is the kind of person I wish to serve for the rest of my life! God make us hungry again for this amazing freedom and which you so expensively purchased by your own blood at Calvary. Fix our eyes permanently only on the final prize O God! - and not on our vain expediencies of realism and very short lived sparks of idealism.