ARE YOU RUNNING FROM YOUR LIFE?

Hello to the person reading this. I hope you are well.

So I’m back, and I think this particular blog is going to be an interesting one. We’re going to take a look at the prophet Jonah and examine how his life is a beautiful commentary on how we tend to live our lives. In my opinion if there is a book in the bible that has been damaged the most severely by how it is portrayed it’s Jonah. Goodness me we’ve not done it justice. The story has been reduced to a narrative about a guy and a fish, it’s maddening! The fish is literally the least important part. I could go on and on about how beautifully the author designs his story, it’s a genuine work of art, but alas this isn’t that kind of blog. So I’m just going to keep it moving and we will take a look at chapter one (I don’t know if we will look at other chapters).

We actually meet Jonah before the first chapter of his book. In the book of 2 Kings 14 when he prophesies in favour of one of the worst kings that Israel has ever had. We then pick up the story of Jonah in chapter one of his book and the author picks up in the middle of action. The Bible says in Jonah 1:1-2; “The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” The moment you read these first two verses you think to yourself “okay I’m about to read a prophet prophesy against people who are sinning.” But that doesn’t happen here, instead what you get is a bit of a twist, the Bible uses the story of a prophet to prophesy to the readers! Okay my Biblical lecture is over now, let’s jump into the story. So the word of The Lord comes to Jonah. God tells him to go preach in Nineveh. Now Nineveh is the capital of Assyria, which is one of the most ruthless oppressive nations there has ever been. When Jonah receives this instruction he does something that no other prophet in the Bible had ever done before or ever did again. Jonah ignores God!  The Hebrew is important here because the author is trying to convey irony. Jonah means dove in Hebrew. In the Bible, doves are the symbol of innocence and purity God will often use them to send a message. Jonah is the son of Amittai, in English Jonah is the son of faithfulness. So this supposed innocent pure son of faithfulness has just ignored God.

I think the author was looking for laughs there. Jonah is literally the most faithless character in this story. We only learn why he runs away in chapter 4 and the reason isn’t because he’s scared of Nineveh it’s actually because Jonah knows God will forgive this group of people that Jonah doesn’t want forgiven. This piece of information changes how we read chapter one. Jonah is a prophet; it’s in the Job spec for him to go where God sends him. But in this case Jonah refuses to obey God.

The author by using the story of Jonah’s disobedience is forcing us to examine our relationship with obedience. Many of us have a negative view of obedience. It makes us view God as this authoritarian control freak who loves to order us around. Maybe we had this sort of parent or minister or teen leader or teacher or all of the above. So we take this view and then it impacts how we view God. But the biblical picture of God is so different. God consistently trusts people to do a job that he’s obviously capable of doing himself. The God of the Bible is desperate to work with us, contrary to what we may believe he isn’t that interested in controlling us. Think about what Jonah has the chance to participate in here. He has the chance to spread the grace of Yahweh beyond just his corner of the world. But he refuses he runs in the opposite direction because he has a vision for his life that is contrary to the vision that God has. And that is the tension of obedience and disobedience. Like Jonah does in this story we trust our vision of life more than the vision that God has of life and because that is often the case we end up running. And just like Jonah did we ignore the chance to participate in life and instead we flee from God and thus we flee from life. If God was the authoritarian control freak we often present to others this is where he’d ignore Jonah. But he isn’t so he doesn’t. Instead the story is about how God continues to make every effort to get Jonah to participate in his vision of the world.

That should greatly impact how we relate with God. Maybe right now you want to run. Believe me I can relate. But maybe God is inviting you into something more profound than you can imagine. The answer may not be running away, maybe the answer is running towards. Maybe that is what will change things in your life and in your faith.