September 2, 2014
“The only thing worse than a stubborn fool is a prideful fool.” As he lay in the darkness, how many times must those words have raced through his mind. For three days those words must have filled his thoughts. His pride and stubbornness had got him in this predicament. His mouth and his thoughts had become his greatest enemy, and had entrapped him in the prison he now found himself in.
But in that silence, in the midst of his disobedience he called out to the only One who could save him. Who could release the chains his pride had trapped him in. “While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple. Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.”
We all know the story of Jonah, a story that has been told to us since our earliest of age. A story of mercy, and a story that fills our mind with endless images. Despite the detail we know of this story, it only took the Lord forty-eight verses to tells us this story. But in the shortness of those verses, God tells us such an amazing and powerful story! The Book of Jonah is so much more than the story of a man who was swallowed by a great fish!
God called Jonah to go and warn the people of Nineveh that the Lord was about to move against them, if they did not repent and turn to the Lord. But Jonah had no desire to see the people of Nineveh repent. They were his sworn enemy, an enemy that had cruelly attacked Israel throughout the years. A nation that was not known for compassion, but a nation that was known for its’ ruthlessness. Jonah saw nothing but a chance to see this enemy eliminate, a revenge he sought, an outcome he desired. So Jonah not only came to the conclusion he would not go and warn Nineveh, he decided he would run away. Run as far from Nineveh and God as possible!
Jonah boards a boat to Tarshish, a city in the complete opposite direction. But as the ship he boards heads for Tarshish, a terrible storm arises, placing the boat and the crew in impending danger. It was during this storm that Jonah realizes he is not running from God, God is following him. Jonah confesses his situation to the crew, and tells the crew unless they throw him overboard, they will not escape this ferocious storm. So reluctantly, the crew throws Jonah overboard, and into the sea.
At this point, Jonah must have thought, “this is it, here is where I die”. But the Lord had other plans for Jonah, plans He had spoken of to Jonah once before, and plans that He would speak to him of again. As Jonah falls into the sea, a great fish comes and swallows Jonah up. And as this great fish the Lord sent protects Jonah from the sea, the crew watches as the storm calms. And in the middle of Jonah’s failed opportunity to follow the call of God, the Lord finds another opportunity. We are told that the crew came to faith by all they had seen, and vowed that faith to our Lord.
Then, in the middle of his disobedience, we read as Jonah acts in an obedient way. He offers the Lord all his heart has to offer, he turns his heart back to the Lord. With these words, the Lord orders the great fish to spit out Jonah onto the shore, and He once again gives His call to Jonah. “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.”(Jonah 3:1-2).
So Jonah picked himself up, and made the three day walk to Nineveh the Lord had called him to do. As Jonah makes his way into the city, he proclaims that the Lord will destroy the city in forty days because of all the wickedness they had done. Jonah then turns back to the pride and stubbornness of his heart. He makes his way up to a hillside overlooking the city, and build himself a small shelter. A place he can wait as he watches the Lord destroy his hated enemy.
But the Lord had a different plan than Jonah in mind. As word reaches the king, he calls on all the citizens of Nineveh to repent. The king recognizes the evil they had become, and turns back to the mercy of the Lord. This pleases God, and He does not destroy the city. As a matter of fact, this pleases all but one, Jonah. Jonah then does what any prideful and stubborn prophet would do, he gives God a piece of His mind! But the Lord does not anger Himself at Jonah, He uses this as an opportunity to teach Jonah. The Lord uses the events on that hillside overlooking the city of Nineveh, to teach Jonah what true compassion is. A compassion He is still teaching each of us about today.
A man who tried to run from God. A man that wanted his own will done at all cost. A man that thought He could ignore God, and thought if he ignored the Lord long enough, He would just go away. A man that was not that different from us, at least a man that was not that different from me.
As I came out of the corporate world, the Lord called me into the ministry. I had a strong desire to study His Word, to know each syllable of His Word. To understand that Word, and to know why He had given us each letter of that Word. But as my classes and my study ended, so did my desire. I did everything in my power to ignore that call, to make every excuse as to why I could not hear that call. I would ask myself, how could the Lord use me? Someone who had just a few years before so selfishly served only himself. A man who would once step on anyone in his way to add another notch to his corporate belt. A man who had once lived to own the moment, without any regard what the next moment might bring. But as I asked these words, I already knew the answers to those words. There is no one the Lord cannot use, and no one He does not have the desire to use. These were words my mind knew, but words my heart would not accept. So, like Jonah, I ran from God.
I worried more about what I would miss, than what I would gain. I followed the path that Adam and Eve had laid, looking at what I could gain from tomorrow, instead of looking right in front of me at what the Lord had given me today. But praise the Lord, the day came when He slowed me down, and made me look at what He had in front of me. The plans and purpose He had laid out on the table before me, the opportunities that He had placed for me there. Opportunities today, that held more than anything a future without them could ever offer. An opportunity that brought me into service for Him, not in service for what I could offer myself. Opportunities that brought the Words I had so sought to know to life, opportunities that do not know regret.
When we run from the arms of God, we must ask ourselves whose arms are we running to? Who are we serving if we are not serving the Lord? Whose work is being accomplished if we are not working for God? What good is being accomplished, if that good does not bring glory to His Name?
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”(Ephesians 2:10). Whether we realize it or not, each of us are called to those works! Each of us are called to serve God. It may be a loud call, that brings us in to His service on a full time bases. Or that may be a quieter call, that moves us to act in the moment to fulfill His purpose. But each day, each of us, receive that call!
That does not mean that everyone who reads this must drop all they are doing and begin to study for the ministry tomorrow! For someone, that may be the call you receive. For others, that call may mean stepping up, and heading a Bible study. It may mean helping those in need in the neighborhood around you, and letting them know it was the Lord who led you. It may mean picking up the phone, and sharing all that Christ has done in your life with the person the Lord led you to call. Ot it may mean praying for those you know online, so that they too will know the Lord in their heart. However large or however small, each of those calls are just as important in the Lord’s eyes, and with each call glory is brought to His Name!
Take it from one who has been blessed by the years he has followed that call, and from the same man who regrets the years that he ignored that call. From one whose life has been blessed to watch the hands of God move, and one who has tried to tie His hands so he did not have to see those hands move. Where God leads you, follow! Where the Lord directs you, go! And when He calls you, answer! There is no greater gift that you will ever experience that to answer that call! To feel the hand of God move, and to know that His hands moved through the willful actions of your life!
The lesson of Jonah is a lesson we each experience, but a lesson I so wish I could keep all from. Opportunities lost in our life, blessings we will never experience. Jonah did not just run from God, he ran from those blessings. He ran from those opportunities. Make the most of those opportunities the Lord will give you today. Do not let those blessings pass you by. Answer His call, and feel the power of His hand move through your life! Do not take years to learn the incredible lesson it took me to learn. Be forever in His Presence, and where He leads you follow! Let you life be guided by seven simple words, where He leads me I will go!
Praying each of you willfully go where the Lord leads you! 