Jonah 1:1-6

Jonah 1:1-6 (New Living Translation)

1 The LORD gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”
3 But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the LORD. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the LORD by sailing to Tarshish.
4 But the LORD hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. 5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. 6 So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.”

When I was thinking and praying about where to start with this blog, one book of the Bible kept coming back to me... Jonah! It was not a story that I really related to as a child and it seemed so fantastic that it was almost unreal. But it IS a story that I am understanding more and more as I get older. In fact, I've never related more to Jonah and his story!

Now I have to tell you that Jonah keeps coming back to me these days. The first time I really looked into Jonah was a couple of months ago when my husband and I were contemplating God's call in our lives. We were at a crossroads in life and didn't know which way to go. I prayed for guidance and God led me to Jonah. There He made it clear that He was comparing US to Jonah. I will get into this more later, but God was making it clear that He wanted us in ministry.

It didn't take long, though, for doubt to rear its ugly head. We began to wonder if this really was what God wanted for us. There was so much uncertainty and much waiting for the rest of His plan to be revealed, and it left open a lot of room for questioning God.

Yesterday, when I was knee deep in doubt, a reminder of God's faithfulness came from an unlikely source... my 2 year old son! He was telling me (in his 2 year old manner) all about the story he learned in Sunday School. And of course, it was Jonah! So we started to talk about it. As I explained the story, I was reminded of all that God had taught ME through Jonah!

Let's begin with these first 6 verses in Jonah. It begins with God's call to Jonah to go to Ninevah and tell the people there of God's impending judgment upon them for their wickedness. Jonah responds to the call by running away! And you know, who can't relate to that? Really! How many people do you know who would easily and enthusiastically rise to that occasion? Ninevah was both powerful and corrupt in some of the worst ways. In addition, I have to wonder if Jonah didn't like the thought that these wicked people might actually repent and receive God's forgiveness... maybe it didn't seem "fair" to a man who had been following God most of his life.

When Jonah ran, he fled as far in the opposite direction of Ninevah as he possibly could. How many times have we done this in our own lives? As for my husband and I, we can certainly relate. We had been called by God to go into ministry over 3 years ago. We made steps toward that goal, but it didn't take long for that fear to set in. So, we ran in a different direction and tried to stay with something that was "comfortable" for us, familiar. It ended up being a HUGE disaster!

For Jonah, that disaster took the form of a violent storm at sea. For us, it took the form of my husband being miserable at his new job where he was lied to over and over again and ridiculed for pointing out those lies. It eventually ended in him not being offered a contract for this year. It left us with anger and frustration that took some time to get over.

Jonah responded to his storm by falling into a deep sleep. We entered into a deep sleep of our own that included resentment, depression and confusion. As with Jonah, the storm we were going through was affecting those around us... our children, our parents and siblings and our friends lived through the storm with us. In Jonah's story the captain of the ship came to Jonah, woke him up and pleaded with him to call upon his God. I'm not exactly sure what woke us up, but eventually, we did and we began to seek God's help to get us out of the storm in our lives.

Is there a storm brewing in your life? Have you been running from God's call? Is your storm hurting those around you? Now is the time to wake up, take notice, and call out to God! He may take you back to the call that filled you with fear in the first place, but He will not leave you or forsake you as you live out His call!