We started to look at the book of Jonah, reading Jonah 1:1-16. Jonah is often known as the ‘reluctant prophet’, since he initially refused to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh and preach against the city. We are not surprised by his reluctance, for Nineveh (situated in Assyria, now modern Iraq) had a reputation for barbaric cruelty and fearsome warriors, but it turns out that Jonah’s reluctance is more to do with his awareness of God’s mercy than fear! One of the highlights of the Bible is that we see people are they are. Even prophets are human (see James 5:17) – we are shown Elijah’s depression and fear, Jonah’s stubborn reluctance to obey God, Jeremiah’s feelings of inadequacy very plainly. There is no place for pedestals in the Christian faith; God alone is worthy of our praise and worship.
God’s call to us may well take us to unfamiliar and unwanted places (literally or figuratively); there will usually be a battle between us and God in which we argue with Him and ultimately learn that nothing can thwart Him and there is no place to which we can run from His presence (see Ps 139: 7-12). All God’s people need to learn to surrender to Him, to pray ‘not my will but Yours be done.’ (Luke 22:42) We will find, like Jacob, that there is actually victory in our ‘magnificent defeat’ (Gen 32:22-32). We don’t have to go through the trauma of shipwreck and being swallowed by a big fish if we will learn to submit to God’s plans for our lives now!
