The Cool Part About Jonah

Jonah is a very relatable person in the Bible for me. He makes perfect sense. When he runs away from God’s directions, I totally get it. How many times have I felt that way?

There are people that have crossed my path whom I hoped, would never get saved. It’s true. I am being very honest here. These people caused so much hurt and havoc in my life, I hoped they would never join God’s family. It was inconceivable to me that they could.

When Jonah runs away from the Ninevites, he knows the power of God. He knows that God is capable of saving a wretched people like the Ninevites, and he wanted no part of it. He understood clearly, who God was.

A little history lesson here. The Ninevites were a terrible people. And I mean, bad. Unlike the Veggie Tale’s version of the Ninevites being fish slappers, that wasn’t even close to who they really were. They were a people related to the Assyrians. The Assyrians were a nasty group. One of their specialities was taking their enemies and sewing them into a bag of skins, then placing them in the desert to die like that. Can you imagine? I have claustrophobia, so the thought alone of being sewed into a bag just gives me the chills.

When Jonah is on the ship and the storm hits, Jonah knows exactly what’s going on. He knows the God who he believes in, is making it uncomfortable so he can go to Nineveh, like God asked him to do the first time. And Jonah doesn’t want to put others at harm, he tells the ship mates to throw him overboard, to save themselves. He probably hoped he would die and that would end it and he would never have to go to Nineveh.

But as the story goes, Jonah doesn’t die. Instead, to create a spectacular story, he’s swallowed by a large fish. (Another cringe worthy moment for my claustrophobia). Then he’s vomited up by the fish, onto dry land. Can you imagine what he’s thinking at this moment? He can’t beat God. God is going to make sure he goes to Nineveh and save those people.

So reluctantly, he does. He finally goes to Nineveh. Jonah delivers a fire and brimstone message to the Ninevetes. (That was probably fairly easy for him). Then he climbs up the mountain to sit and watch, what he hoped, fire and brimstone rain down on Nineveh. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he has a chat with God about his bad behavior.

I’ve heard people rag on Jonah. When I hear people complain about him, they fail to realize one important aspect of the story. It’s an important piece, that I usually don’t hear people talk about. Jonah sits down and writes the story of Jonah, warts and all. Jonah wrote all that bad stuff about himself. He didn’t try to cover it over or make it sound better. He wrote about himself in a very unflattering light. I love that part of the story. That is the cool part about Jonah. Jonah ragged on himself in the book of Jonah.