God is patient, persistent
Our daughter’s over in Israel right now. Encountered a few snags boarding her plane in Anchorage. For one thing she tested positive for gun powder on her shoes. The reason being she owns a shooting range in Alaska — where she and her husband give firearms instruction. This led to further questioning and a search of her belongings by the powers that be. The world at our fingertips — but for some destinations it’s a careful reach.
Already on Day One she is enthralled to be in the Holy Land at Joppa — an ancient Mediterranean seaport city, today called Jaffa, where the Bible tells of Jonah — the runaway who ducked out on what God had clearly told him to do and boarded a ship going somewhere else.
God “hurled a great wind on the sea” which bred a fierce storm. The ship was about to split apart. The sailors frantically tossed cargo to lighten it — and “every man cried to his god.” Jonah — in deeper escape yet — was asleep in the hold. The captain roused him with the same cry to “call on your god.”
The crew cast lots to discover who was responsible for this crisis — and the lot fell to Jonah. They asked him, “Where do you come from? From what people are you?” He answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear (stand in awe of) the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.” Jonah wanted them to throw him overboard. He knew this had come upon them because “he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord.” To their credit the crew “rowed desperately to return to land but they could not …” So they pitched Jonah into the sea and the water immediately calmed.
The men recognized something bigger and truer than what they thought they knew was going on here. They believed in Jonah’s God right then and there. But what happened to Jonah? The text says, “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.” Long enough for God and him to have a serious conversation.
The result being when Jonah was cast onto land from the fish’s mouth he had undergone a change of heart. He was ready to go where God wanted him to go — to do what God sent him to do. Which was to tell a great city to turn from its violence — to “call on God earnestly” — and be forgiven.
Jonah, I guess you knew you weren’t going to get away with running the other direction, but still you tried. Well, you’re not the only one. Good thing we have a patient and persistent God who keeps us from a false finish line. And gets us to the right one.