Jonah-Sound Familiar?
Recently in my Teenage Sunday School class, we went through the book of Jonah. For a lot us, we know the story about the man that was swallowed by what we often call a whale. But, there is more to the whole story of Jonah. And when we look more closely, I think we can all see ourselves in the life of Jonah at different times. So, I thought it would be good to walk through the book of Jonah and see what we can learn from the life of this man.
The book of Jonah opens up with God coming to Jonah asking him to go to the city of Nineveh and preach repentance to them. Simple request. God asks a preacher to go preach.
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Jonah 1:2
Now the book of Jonah could have been a really short book if Jonah had simply fulfilled the request that God laid before him. It wasn’t like God was asking Jonah to do something that he had never done before. But, God was asking him to go preach to a group of people that Jonah didn’t particularly care for. The city of Nineveh was a wicked city. It was located in Assyria. That would be what is now Northern Iraq. In Jonah’s eyes, these people were the enemy. They were pagans. In Jonah’s mind, they deserved to die and go to hell. So what does Jonah do?
“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.” Jonah 1:3
I’m afraid that Jonah did the same thing that we do a lot of times. He tuck tail and ran. Here he is the “man of God” running from God. He didn’t want to preach to the people of Nineveh. He didn’t want to see them repent. He didn’t want them to receive God’s grace and mercy. He wanted to see the people of Nineveh get what they deserved. How many times do we allow our personal feelings towards others get in our way of doing what God asks of us? When God asks us to witness to someone or invite them to church, but we don’t get along with them. Or they don’t “fit” the type of people we want in our church. We tuck tail and run. Or maybe in times past, we had not been very nice to them and we worry how they will respond to us. We run.
God’s Great Commission tells us to go and share the Gospel with every creature. This is a command. It is not conditional. It does not depend on whether we are comfortable doing it. He says go. We don’t need to be like Jonah. If we profess to be a child of God’s, then we should welcome His requests and try to fulfill them to the very best that we can. Trust that He is going to provide you with everything you need to complete the task. Remember it is His task not ours.