Jonah 1:1-15
v5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. All this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold.
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v11-12 And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?” “Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.”
First reflections …
Imagine yourself in Jonah’s place, having just been thrown overboard.
Cargo debris floats all around you; the storm has abated but the ocean still swells and the sky is threatening. What brought you to this place?
This place is cold, wet, uncomfortable. And yet give yourself time to remain here, allow God the opportunity to speak into your life.
Sometimes in life we feel we have been cast overboard into the stormy ocean. Sometimes we are blameless - bad stuff just happens - but sometimes we know, we just know - when we can admit it to ourselves - that we messed up, took a wrong road, made a bad choice, or simply let circumstances overwhelm us when we should have stood up to that encroaching sin. And when that happens,
when we've been thrown overboard, we have two choices: to wallow in the waves or start looking for a life raft!
Jonah's life raft was little unusual, of course: he spent three days in the belly of a fish!
You see, there are always consequences to our actions (or inactions). God rescued Jonah immediately from the danger of drowning but that didn't mean Jonah was off the hook. Assuming the story to be true, it must have been a seriously smelly, disgusting, cold, wet experience, and we know it was only for three days, but I bet he didn't at the time!
Jonah's prayer in chapter 2 tells us a little about what he was thinking:
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry." [2:1-2]
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"The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me;
But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple." [2:5-7]
Sometimes we get ourselves in these predicaments because we forget about God - forget to include him in our decision making and everyday activities - and then we blame him for getting us... or letting us... get into a big mess! The benefit of freewill is that we get to make our own decisions in life; the drawback is that we get to make our own catastrophes too.
But God will never leave us engulfed by the waves
just as he knew God would forgive the repentant Ninevites, so too Jonah needed a dose of his own medicine: as he hurled these words in anger at the Lord:
I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. [4:2]
I wonder what was going on in his brain? Did he see the parallel? Or perhaps a smidge of hypocrisy? The very thing he was chastising God about - forgiving a repentant heart - was what he had begged the Lord to do for him only a short time before. And yet the Lord will always rescue us, always forgive, always lift us out of the storm.
Nothing we do, or fail to do, is beyond redemption.
We are forgiven through the blood of Jesus, saved by his loving arms upon the cross, and always - eventually - brought back into the safe harbour of God's holy temple.
Going deeper …
Why not spend some time now reading Jonah's story from the Bible. In a place of quiet reflection, perhaps ask yourself these questions:
Have you ever consciously ignored or disobeyed a request from God?
Have you ever ‘slept’ through a crisis, avoiding or hiding from it?
Have you ever been aware of being the cause/source of a problem?
You may like to watch/listen to this music video as you do so. https://youtu.be/yIbB1S_LLH8 Remember there is no condemnation here. Salvation comes from the Lord [2:9] willingly, generously and in full and complete love.