Jonah 3:1-3
As the story goes…God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh, a corrupt city, and tell them that if they repent they will not be destroyed. Well this annoys Jonah, who thinks the Ninevites deserve whatever they get. After peevishly pouting and fretting, Jonah comes up with a plan, he decides to run away by boarding the nearest ship and sailing as far away as he can possibly go in order to flee from God.
But there is a storm, and in desperation the sailors toss Jonah (who told them he was fleeing God) overboard into the sea, (he is, after all, a runaway from his religion) and Jonah is swallowed by a huge fish, a whale. Jonah prays to the Lord for three days and at the end of that time the Lord tells the fish to spit Jonah out onto dry land. After all this God again asks Jonah to go to Nineveh; eventually he does, reluctantly. The people hear Jonah’s message, and ALL of them, from the greatest to the least, repent. The Lord, upon seeing this, has compassion and does not bring about the destruction he had threatened.
Jonah is not the first person to run away from God and will certainly not be the last. Travel north east to Nineveh, God tells Jonah, but the stubborn prophet deliberately heads west. Like a scared house cat Jonah does exactly the opposite; he wants no part of the job God assigned. Yet in the long run there is no escape. After a number of extraordinary experiences at sea, Jonah finds himself seated somewhere on a sunny beach with that same job bouncing right back at him again...“Arise! Go to Nineveh!” the Lord said…stop trying to flee your calling.
In a world where celebrities and politicians come announcing their own agenda―Jonah comes along today in the voice of a less-than-perfect prophet announcing GOD’s agenda. We can attempt to flee, throughout life we will again and again try to flee, but in the end there is no place to hide―the GOOD news―we may try to walk out on God―but God will NEVER walk out on us!
“Arise, and go forth” the Lord says (to you and me)―stop trying to flee your calling―but rather―learn to embrace your calling.
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