Had there been a psychiatrist in Joppa that Jonah could visit, he would likely have diagnosed him as Passive Aggressive. This is one of my favorite personality disorders since you can fairly well predict what a person is going to do. It’s not what they say so much, it’s what they do or don’t do that matters, and its usually the opposite of what they should do. I mean, who in their right mind openly says No to God? You say Yes of course and then proceed to No.
I wonder if Jonah said yes to God and then turned around and went the other way. How could he do that? He had to hear God’s voice giving him directions. He had to recognize the authority of God. Yet, he didn’t know God well enough to know what God expected and the lengths God would go to carry out Jonahs assigned mission.
Jonah knew God, but I doubt he KNEW God. Many of us today fall into this same predicament.
We know just enough about God to say that we know what He wants for us and expects of us, but we don’t seem to know how he has set plans in motion to see us through to the other side.
This lack of experience and trust in God is a learning point for us. Jonah seems to get it for a short while and even acts nobly among the crew of the ship as they are about to drown. He once again knows God and what He will do. In verse 12 of the first chapter, He tells the crew, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea.”
Jonah does not seem to know that he is on a bus route and that his bus is being prepared for his pickup. He just knows that God will sink that boat if he remains on it. We don’t arrive at the bus stop until verse 17, where God, who seems to have a thing for fish, calls one forth from the ocean so that the great creature can give Jonah a lift. Turns out Jonah had gone so far away from God’s map that it took some three days of travel to get him back to where he was supposed to be going.
Three days to think about life and what you are going to do with your one very precious and wild life. For some of us, it’s more like 3 years or more. Seems like it was enough to get Jonah back on track, even though he will have more problems to come. More on those later.
In the meantime, the lesson to learn here is what? I’m just spitballing here, but let me suggest this. With God, you never know what He is going to do or ask you to do. Got that? But you can be sure, that He knows, and if He calls you, He already has a plan and all the resources needed to accomplish that plan.
You may think the worst, you could die, your family will be destitute, or your life will somehow turn out miserably. This is a failure to really KNOW God. We may know enough about Him to know something of His personality and even what He expects, but KNOWING Him is another matter.
That kind of knowledge is to be sought after. I hope it only takes three days to obtain it.
