Jonah. Jonah. Jonah…was it worth it? I’m sure Jonah must’ve felt pretty happy with his rebellion until God had to wake him up from his little fantasy.
A lot of the time we don’t realise this, but the issues in our life tend to be directly related to a decision where God said go and we said no. Unfortunately, like in the case of Jonah, this usually ends up with something bad happening and us running back to God. For some its an immediate reaction. For others of us, it takes a couple tough times for us to get the message.
With Jonah, his tough time came in the form of a fish.17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
People get caught up on the whole fish swallowing a human thing. And I get it. But this really isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
First of all, there are known cases of people, like me and you, being swallowed by a large fish (like a great white shark) and surviving. Secondly, God didn’t create one magical human-swallowing fish for Jacob. He simply “provided” one. How? The fish did what Jonah failed to, it obeyed God. So what do we have here? The wind, the sea and now the fish obeying God, but his beloved preacher is still struggling.
And finally, Jonah did what so many of us have down before, he prayed to get out of the situation he created. He didn’t pray when he first ran. He wasn’t praying when he got on the boat and paid the fare. He didn’t even pray in the middle of the storm. But now, when he’s swallowed by the fish, he decides to pray. Why?
I can only imagine, but Jonah probably ran out of “Okay yeah its bad, but I can still figure it out with time” and “Well I’m not dead like how I would be in Nineveh”. And now he’s probably looking at the ceiling of the fish’s mouth thinking “I can’t do this by myself, I need You Lord”.
I’d really recommend you read Jonah 2, to get a full picture of Jonah’s prayer.
There are two things I think we should really take from Jonah’s prayer:
- God didn’t act until Jonah remembered (verse 7) and until he confessed (verse 9). Sometimes we want God to help us out the situation before we decide to commit to him, like he needs to prove himself. Jonah acted and God responded, commanding the fish to vomit Jonah onto the dry land (verse 10).
- Jonah confessed and vowed, he didn’t bargain. Honesty time.I don’t know how many times I’ve said the “Lord if you do this, I promise I’ll stop doing this”, largely because I was in a position where I felt like I couldn’t get out of it by myself. Jonah’s prayer was different. He made a vow to God, not simply because of his position, but truly because he remembered what God has done in the past and wants to do better by him in the future.
“Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we start looking up” Erm. Sometimes, sure, but this shouldn’t be the standard we keep. It’s cool to pretend like the struggles of life makes it worth it, but I don’t think God necessarily wants us to struggle, but its our decisions, a lot of the time, which causes it. We mess up, a lot.
You know what’s good though, God knows this about us, and he knew this about Jonah too. Despite all the rebellious running, God gave Jonah a chance to right his wrong, with the same command: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Fast forward and you know what, he did it. And they cut of his head.
Nah I’m joking. These wicked people became prayer warriors; fasting, praying and calling on God in repentance, and the city was spared.
One man. God did all that through one man.
“Why couldn’t God tell Jonah about all this at the start”. Let’s even skip the faith part, he did. Jonah knew what the outcome would be but wasn’t ready to take the trip to get there. Imagine how much God could do through each and every one of us if we just said yes.
But I’ve already said no. This isn’t limited to the first time. You may have said no in the past. You might even be running away right now. But its never too late to turn around and say Yes!
*Shoutout to “Send me I’ll go” by Terrance Richmond
My Sunday Skl 