I find it interesting that we are told that Jonah “ran from the Lord”. How does someone do that? It’s not like God is a physical entity from whom a person can run. But what we do see is Jonah running by not doing what he was asked to do. Whenever we know what we should do and don’t do it, we are in effect running from God; creating distance between us and him.
Read More distractions, running from God, discipleshipOne of the lessons that God is teaching Jonah throughout this book is the same lesson that God is teaching us. The whole book is teaching a lesson about the kindness of God’s mercy.
God’s mercy towards the superstitious, idolatrous sailors who don’t even know God, but end up asking God to have mercy when they throw Jonah overboard.
Read More God’s kindness, mercyIn what ways is God merciful? How does God show his kindness? We get a clue as to the extent of God’s kindness in the first verse of this chapter where we read, “Once again the Lord told Jonah…” Here we see that the mercy of God is seen in the fact that He is a God who restores. He is the God who gives second chances.
Let’s face it, when Jonah took a ship to Tarshish, in the completely opposite direction from Nineveh, it wasn’t because he was dyslexic.
Read More second chances, consequences, mercyThe word “angry” occurs 6 times in this last chapter. Anger signals that something is wrong but it fails to tell us whether the wrong is outside of us or inside of us. Usually we assume that the wrong is outside us; it’s our spouse or our kids, or this lousy weather or perhaps we even blame God. That is exactly what Jonah did. But when we track anger carefully, we often find it can be traced to a wrong within us: wrong information, inadequate understanding or an underdeveloped heart
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