Blessings to you! Jonah has a very important message that God has for him to give To Nineveh. Can you imagine the great responsibility of that? Will God help him do his assignment? So many things to think about and so many questions to ask. Have you ever had a hard time understanding why your parents ask for your obedience In doing a job? Like Dishes, raking leaves, helping at the grocery store? I bet Jonah learned to realized God saw what was happening and what was going to happen. Jonah needed to be obedient to that call for this need. God is amazing and helps us if we ask. But wha you do, don’t run, trust in the Lord. Shalom ( peace),
LOVEJOY
I found it very interesting when I looked into scripture about Jonah as a person. Jonah imo was definitely wrestling with GOD's directive. Jonah bauked. He flatly refused and tried whining and getting his way rather than doing as he was told. Not only did he bauk, but Jonah took off and ran...albeit in a ship to somewhere else. Jonah was a self righteous bigot IMO. He suffered from pride and he flatly looked down on certain groups of people in that day and considered them "beneath him." Besides that , Jonah IMO showed cowardness. Nineveh was not a nice "vacations spot." People there were lawless, foreign, worshipping idols and conducting themselves with one another in despicable ways. What comes to my imagination is a party on an island with a group of humans that can only be reached by air or ship. It was an island to itself and one that in our lifetime now do still exist. Those living and breathing and carrousing in Nineveh were certainly not of the "best" moral character and did as they wanted. Few of them, more than likely were ever even willing to give someone who did have any moral sense about them a word to get in edgewise. Jonah would be mocked, ridiculed and persecuted. It would be like walking into a cave full of rabid bats! This is how I imagine Jonah saw Nineveh. He saw Nineveh as it was...he didn't see how it could be by God's intent and hand placed into it. So Jonah flees from the mission and the responsibility that the Lord wanted him to enter into. Was it simply for those who inhabited Nineveh, to hear the word of the LORD? I think not. I think in the mission that God designated and sent Jonah to complete was to "clean up" and eradicate those prideful and arrogant ways that were still inside of Jonah's own heart. It took 3 days inside that fish to clean Jonah up and removed the sin inside the heart of Jonah. It took 3 days for Jonah to come to acknowledge his own sin he carried in his heart upon other humans and their assumed inferiority. How often do we choose NOT to go because we fear the dirt will rub off onto us ourselves? How often to we turn away from those who we deem as not as righteous as ourselves? God forgive us when our human nature prevents us from following the LORD into unknown un-walked paths we fear. God forgive us for our self-righteousness!