Jonah 1:1-2
“Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ’Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’”
Everybody knows the story of Jonah; God makes a request, Jonah disobeys, big fish swallows Jonah, Jonah repents and does God’s deal and they live happily ever after! That kind of sounds like my daily existence sometimes—God making a request, me disobeying, a metaphorical big fish swallows me, I repent, but the living happily ever after is going to have to wait until I’m home in heaven. Of course there’s a bunch of details in between all those things, and that was true for Jonah also; the in between details of his life.
Imagine being Jonah and one day the word of the Lord comes to you. I really like it when the word of the Lord comes to me; I love sensing the connection of God’s Spirit with my spirit; I love knowing that God isn’t silent. So, I wonder if Jonah heard God’s voice audibly, or if he sensed God’s voice in an inner way. I’m leaning toward the idea that Jonah heard directly and audibly from God, especially since Jonah tells us what God said. Jonah hears the word of the Lord, which sometimes can be a fearful thing or daunting thing. God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh, a great city, and call out (preach or prophesy) against it because they’re doing evil.
God can lay some pretty heavy things on us as people some times; things that we could never do in our own power or strength; things that seem like an impossibility, things we’re afraid of attempting, things we don’t even want to consider doing because we can’t get our minds around how they’re going to get done. Maybe that’s where Jonah was with what God was asking him to do.
I’ve been right there! I’ve been where Jonah was. That’s how Ekklesia came to be. In June of 2003 I had just begun working in full-time vocational ministry; I was Director of Discipleship at New Life Church, I was pastor to young adults and terribly excited those first 3-4 months. However, in October I was having a great restlessness inside of me and could not pinpoint what it was. I spent three days of prayer and fasting alone with God and during that time received God’s vision for Ekklesia. And, as with God’s request of Jonah, the vision for Ekklesia was nearly overwhelming! In some ways I wanted to do what Jonah did, run the other direction. It was all too big for me; I couldn’t get my mind around what God was dreaming and asking.
A few days after I returned from my time of prayer and fasting with God I was driving into the office one day, praying as I drove, having a pretty animated discussion with God about Ekklesia. I told God that this whole thing had to be his deal, that it couldn’t be my deal, because if it were my deal I would screw it up—and I had already screwed so many things up in my life that I couldn’t and wouldn’t screw this up. I told God that it was so overwhelming to me and that if it really was him and I was really supposed to do this that he had to confirm it 100 different ways.
God spent the next two years readying me for Ekklesia by providing those 100 confirmations. I guess Jonah just needed his confirmations in a different way.
“But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.” (v3)
Jonah does something pretty brazen, he purposefully moves away from God. I bet if you were to ask Jonah about that today he would likely suggest that you not do that with God. Can there be any more of a safe place than to be where God is? Can there be any more security, comfort, peace and assurance in your life than being where God is? Isn’t that what most of us strive for—to find out where God is and get close to him? And, when we’re in his presence isn’t that where we want to linger? Don’t we always want to be on the mountaintop with God? Not Jonah though; Jonah didn’t like what he was hearing while in God’s presence and decided to move away from God.
I’ve done that too! Man, I’m more like Jonah than I realized. There have been times in my life that I purposefully looked at God and said “sorry, but I don’t think I’m going that way, God.” Those might have ended up being the darkest days of my adult life. God will let you move away from him; God will let you go the direction that you want to go—I lived that and did that! Jonah makes his decision to do that too.
Isn’t it interesting, when Jonah decides to move away from God, he has to go looking for ways that will help him do that? Jonah heads toward Joppa, looks for a ship that will take him to Tarshish. It’s interesting; nobody seems to really know where Tarshish was. Historians, scholars and biblical experts have all speculated that Tarshish could have been Cilicia in Southeast Turkey or Spain or Tunis in North Africa or Cyprus or Sicily or Crete, or somewhere in the Western Mediterranean or Asia Minor or even the British Isles. So, we’re not exactly sure where Jonah was heading, but we know it was where God wasn’t. Jonah just wanted to be away from God. At that moment Jonah and God were having their conversation near modern day Mosul, Iraq.
When I visited Iraq last year we spent part of a day not too far from Mosul. We drove a narrow winding road up a mountain and as we got to the top we were able to look across what were the plains of Nineveh. A small gazebo had been constructed on top of the mountain in honor of Jonah. I remember standing there thinking, “okay, Nineveh is over there, so Jonah must have went THAT way” and I looked 180 degrees the opposite direction.
There’s something else that amazes me about Jonah, he paid to get away from God. Jonah purchased passage on a ship that was headed for Tarshish.
I wonder if we really consider the cost of following God? When we are introduced to who Jesus is, and we’re told of how good life can become with him; when we’re told of the offer of forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God; do we realize what it’s going to cost us? In fact, do we tell others what it will cost them? I wonder if Jonah knew what it would cost him to follow God; I doubt it, because by this point he wasn’t concerned with what the cost was to come to God, but what the cost was to move away from God.
This time in Jonah’s life reminds me of Madonna the pop singer. In 2000 she married Guy Richie and they seemed like the happily married couple for several years. However, their marriage ended this year, and it’s been reported that Guy Richie may have received as much as 70 million dollars in their divorce settlement. There was a time when Madonna was totally in love with Guy Richie, but in the end she was willing to pay nearly any price to get away from him.
