Jonah 1:4
“But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.”
As the ship that Jonah is sailing on encounters this hurricane-like storm, I wonder what was going through Jonah’s mind? Did Jonah even make the connection that the storm was happening because of him? Did Jonah think that the moment he chose to move away from God that the issue of going to Nineveh was over?
Throughout the history of the Israelites they too often failed to see “cause and effect.” They failed to understand that their disobedience led to problems and a miserable life; this can especially be seen in 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles. Those books of the Bible are filled with story after story of people, including kings, priests and other leaders who lived their lives apart from God and brought terrible consequences upon themselves because of it.
“Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.” (v5)
Jonah must have been super annoyed at God when he was asked by God to go and preach to Nineveh. Not only did Jonah say “no” to God about going to Nineveh, he moves away from God so that he doesn’t have to potentially deal with the issue again, and now he’s totally indifferent to the desires of God, so much so that he’s asleep in the bottom of the ship while the storm is raging and the sailors are fearful for their lives.
Nineveh was a city of pagans, not Israelites. In fact, throughout much of Israel’s history those pagans from Nineveh were often at war with Israel—Nineveh was the land of the Assyrians. Maybe that’s why Jonah had such a problem going to them, he hated Assyrians, and he knew their murderous history against Israel.
It seems as though the sailors on the ship came from a variety of background, and it appears that all of them worshipped something other than God, they “each cried out to his god,” that god with a small “g”.
Something I’ve noticed in my own past is that when I choose to move away from God, when I choose not to obey him, when I choose to do my own thing and live life the way I want to live it; I find myself moving in circles of people who don’t know or love God. I don’t know if I’ve done it consciously or sub-consciously, but I did it. Maybe it allowed me to experience less conviction from God, since these people wouldn’t even be talking about God or care much about what God thought. They were almost like “human Novocain” that helped to numb the pain of living life apart from God.
The sailors are trying everything they know to calm the storm; they first pray and try to call out to their gods to appease their gods; then when that doesn’t work they take matters in to their own hands and begin throwing the cargo overboard to lighten the ship so that it can move more freely in the storm. That too is a picture of a life I once lived when I lived apart from God. The tougher life got, the more I took matters into my own hands to try and deal with stuff that was going on. If I was having financial problems, I simply took on an additional job and worked more hours. If I was having health problems, I’d simply go to the doctor for a cure. But, I never made the connection that those things were happening because I had moved away from God.
“So the captain came and said to him, ‘What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.’” (v6)
I can envision it; the captain is in a panic, his ship is about to sink, they’ve tried everything they can to save the ship, they’ve tossed the cargo overboard, all the sailors are doing everything they possibly can to help, people are praying to their gods, the captain’s probably pulling his hair out trying think what he could possibly do next and as he stumbles down the stairs to the lower part of the ship he finds Jonah asleep. I can imagine the captain saying something like, “what the heck…get your sorry behind up; don’t you know we’re about to sink, how can you be sleeping at a time like this?” I’m only guessing, but I’m pretty confident that there were several expletives throw in by the captain, including maybe dropping the equivalent of the “F-bomb” when he refers to Jonah as “you sleeper.”
And in that moment God uses the captain to convict Jonah of his sin of disobedience. There’s really nothing that Jonah could do that the sailors hadn’t already done, except pray. In that moment I believe God reminds Jonah, “Jonah, I haven’t gone anywhere, even though you have. And, I haven’t changed my mind about Nineveh either. You can run but you can’t hide.”
I’ve had that happen too in my life. When I’ve made a conscious choice to move away from God, to disobey him, to live life on my own, to do what I want to do, God has used people who don’t even have any belief or faith in God as convicting tools in my life. Sadly, sometimes non-Christians are more aware of what Christians should be doing than Christians are themselves, especially when Christians are living like the pagans.
The pagan captain, without knowing it, had some understanding of the heart of God in that moment…knowing that God “…is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) God didn’t want Jonah to perish; God wanted Jonah to obey. God didn’t even want the sailors to perish. God’s heart has always been for all the peoples of the earth. Maybe this was part of the problem Jonah was having with God; maybe Jonah fully understood God’s promise to Abram “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” (Genesis 12:1-3) God didn’t want the Assyrians of Nineveh to perish either.
Some times I see the “cause and effect” in some of its most simple forms, like when I’m having a rotten day and it’s only 9:30am, and in that moment I realize I didn’t spend time with God that morning. Like lots of people, I won’t recognize it for what it is because I think there has to be some other cause—stuff like…people are jerks when they drive on MY freeway in the morning, or what moron took two parking spaces so that I couldn’t have one, or the clerk at Giant Eagle must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. When in reality it all is me.
Maybe one of the best things we can do as Christians is follow the example of the captain on that ship that Jonah was on; when things aren’t going well, when things seem to be falling apart all around us, when there’s no explanation for why life is the pits right now—pray—perhaps God will give a thought to us, and we’ll realize that the problem is us and our relationship with God.
