Have you ever wanted to be the star of the show? Ever wanted to be the center of attention? Maybe you’re shy, and that would be like a death-sentence to you. Maybe you’re people-energized and that would be like a dream come true for you.
Jonah was the star of the show. He knew it. Let’s check it out.
The Back Story (Jonah 1:11-17)
The seasoned sailors didn’t know how to appease Jonah’s God, so they asked him. Jonah told them to throw him into the sea, because he knew this tempest was because of him.
The men weren’t pleased with his answer so they tried everything they could to work it out a different way. They tried rowing, threw cargo over, but the treacherous sea got worse.
They finally prayed to Jonah’s God, themselves, begging for mercy, as they saw throwing Jonah overboard was like cold-blooded murder. They picked up Jonah and threw him over. The wind stopped immediately. It probably took a moment for the sea to stop churning, but that stopped too. The sea was as smooth as glass in moments!
The men were converted. Whatever god they believed in before, was nothing compared to Jonah’s God. Jonah’s first evangelistic meeting was a success, as they offered a sacrifice and took vows to their new God.
They probably expected Jonah to swim and then go down and drown. It was sad, but that was the normal order of things. But it must have been horrifying to see a large mouth coming out of the deep, to swallow their friend. It says, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (vs 17)
Whatever vows the sailors had made, I’m sure they doubled them at that stage!
Thoughts
My Own Way
The sailors tried to work things out their own way. As a result, they probably were missing a great deal of cargo and their livelihood would have suffered. They were happy to walk away with their lives, mind you, but even so, much of this pain might have been circumvented if they would have asked the right questions in the beginning.
But the thing I know about God is that He LOVES process. For as long as I’ve known Him, He rarely takes shortcuts. In fact, He rarely takes the regular route, either. More often than not, in my experience, He usually forges a new trail, in a winding-sort-of-way, through the thickest part of the painful-forest. And as He is in the lead, He expects me to follow, even through the valley of the shadow of death.
Sometimes living through a storm is super scary. Let’s be honest, I’m as petrified as those sailors, and I shouldn’t be, because I KNOW who is leading me. (they didn’t). But I’m scared anyway.
Oddly enough, when I was asking God yesterday about my current storm He told me His perspective. Now, that brought a sense of relief. But I was still somewhat agitated.
Jesus leaned close to my heart and whispered, “FYI, Fear is a waste of time”.
That changed everything.
Jesus was daring me to look fully into His face, regardless of the wind and the waves slapping me in the face and in the immortal words of cartoon Aladdin, Jesus held out his hand and asked me, “Do you trust me?”
When the Most powerful, Most High, God of the Universe tells me, “Do you trust me”, there’s not a whole lot of wiggle room, to answer.
Not a lot of space to hedge my bets and decrease my chance of losing.
Not a lot of space to politely sugar-coat the issue… my trust, vs. His ability to preform a miracle that He said He would do, but I haven’t seen yet.
It kinda puts things out in the open,
Lays my heart bare…
Sorta vulnerable. Just saying.
Pause.
It’s weird that it’s vulnerable, actually. I know that God knows ALL, including parts of my heart that I don’t even know. So, it shouldn’t be a shock that He knows and that He’s pulling that out…
But it is..
Everytime!
Where does that put you, my darling? Are you shocked by your own response like I was? What’s your decision about the Trustworthiness of God?
Jump into the Water
This has struck me as interesting. Jonah told the sailors to throw him overboard.
Why didn’t Jonah throw himself over and just jump?
Was he afraid? Was it a religious decision?
I found: in traditional Jewish thought, the body belongs to God, and as such ending one’s life not considered within the scope of a person’s authority. Suicide is sometimes regarded as stealing from God and a rejection of God’s sovereignty. (Jewish Learning)
Jonah was already dealing with the storm that was caused because He didn’t take the Sovereignty of God seriously. I suspect he certainly didn’t want to repeat THAT mistake again. So, the solution was that the sailors had to throw him overboard.
Which is why they were so afraid. They knew that God was upset and they didn’t want to tick off an already-upset God by killing one of his messengers. They were in quite a precarious position. But they begged for mercy and did the deed, throwing Jonah over.
It was through honoring God that Jonah’s life was saved. He honored the Sovereignty of God over his life and God gave it back to him in order to complete his mission.
If you feel like the storm has over taken you, but you honor God with every ounce of who you are to the end, who knows that it just may not be the end after all? Darling, keep honoring God, even in the impossible.
Pain
Don’t underestimate the power of pain.
Jonah didn’t struggle. He submitted and came into agreement with the decision to throw him overboard. He didn’t know what was going to happen. But He submitted anyway.
Yesterday, my friend hurt her shoulder, it seemed that her shoulder went out of place. The pain was so bad she gasped and nearly dropped to the ground (now, this is a woman who’s tough and has had babies ON HER OWN in her bathtub. She’s TOUGH.) So, this pain was – painful! I watched in frustration as I could do NOTHING of value to help her. She had to walk through this pain on her own. How could this be of value???
People watch people. That’s a natural human reaction. We watch them on TV, we watch them on YouTube and we watch people around us do life. I watched my friend in pain.
I asked Jesus about it – and He showed me the time when His shoulder was wrenched out of place – when he was nailed to the cross and it was lifted up and dropped into the hole in the ground. That wrenched his shoulder badly. It was the same type of gasp.
I heard my friend say, “God, even though my should hurts, I know you are good, good, good. And I expect all good things to come from you,” as she was gasping in pain.
She was a mirror of Jesus for me in that moment.
How do you handle your pain, my darling? Are you a mirror of Jesus? Do people wonder what you’re about because of how you handle yourself? This was a lesson to me that in the quiet of my pain, people may still be watching, observing and learning about my relationship with God, as I struggle. In my storm, will I struggle to honor my Lord?
Jonah was the star of his own show and the sailors got a front row seat.
