Recently I was considering the story of Jonah. He was a man who clearly
wanted to beat to his own drum. Even in his service to God he seemed
determined to minister to whomever he wanted to minister to and go wherever
he decided he should go. He wasn’t shy about telling God what he thought or
what he was going to say. The scriptures also give us insight into how he
apparently didn’t mind just telling God, “No.”, turning his back on Him, and
then attempting to move as far away from God and His mission as he could.
Pretty brazen! Jonah seemed to forget (or tried to ignore….) some basic
truths about God like you can’t hide from Him, and telling Him you are not
going to do what he very much wants you to do does not end well. The other
thing he forgot is that God knows best and He has his reasons for what he
does. His ways are not always our ways and His thoughts are not always our
Praise be to God for telling us the life-stories of people like Jonah, that
we may reflect upon them, see ourselves, confess our sin and repent. Do you
see yourself in the life of Jonah (minus perhaps the great fish….)? Let’s
take a closer look and see if we can find ourselves in there somewhere.
We’ll drop in when Jonah is giving God a piece of his mind after he has
“But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to
the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is
what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a
gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God
who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is
Hmmm….not a very flattering account of one of God’s people. Imagine how
that might sound in a more modern vernacular……. “ I would rather die than
tell that arrogant, rude, insensitive clod one thing about the grace of God.
After what he said to me? No way!”. Now perhaps you are saying, “Well Rob,
that is a little over the top…I mean I would never summarily dismiss someone
that way and keep them from the grace of God.” Well, if you are saying that
I’m glad to hear it. I wonder though…if you and I are perhaps more…subtle.
If you would, please take a moment and think about the people who are
routinely in your life who you don’t like. Now ask yourself how willing you
are to talk with them or be around them. Perhaps you are seeing that you
routinely are avoiding them…practically running from them. So my question
for each of us is if we tend to react this way to those we don’t care for,
how are we going to share God’s love and truth with them when we keep
ourselves miles away from them? Do we perhaps have “the spirit of Jonah” in
us and have deemed such folks as those who will never hear about the grace
of God from us? Perhaps if I word it a little more purposefully it might
bring greater conviction to us all. How about, “That person will never hear
from me about my Savior who died for the sins of the world and who saved a
wretch like me. I am not going to utter one word about The Lord Jesus Christ
who died for me even when I was His enemy, caked in sin, and wallowing
There is a great call in the scriptures for all believers in Jesus Christ:
8 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he
has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore
Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We
implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who
had no sin to be sin[
<https://www.biblegateway.com/
n-NIV-28899b
There is our charge. Be an ambassador. Be a minister. God made him who had
no sin to be sin for us. It would seem that if He was willing to go to such
great lengths then we can share the gospel with whomever he puts in our path
no matter what we think of them and no matter where they are located,
whether it be in Nineveh or across the office floor. Let’s not be ministers
For Him,