Sign of Jonah

I feel this relationship we have will prove most fruitful if I am transparent. I didn't have much of a plan coming back form India. Ask the guy I went with (Mitch Wiley). I went and God moved. Now I have returned and I expect much of the same but have no idea what it will look like. It seems as if I am in another situation - the same we all often find ourselves in - where I am reliant upon the work of God to bring about purpose to my day and fruit to my labor. 

I read Psalm 114 this morning as I set out to receive whatever God had to say. It reads, "When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became sanctuary and Israel his dominion (v. 1,2)." I have done the same. I left that place and God is still dwelling within me. The passage goes on to describe scenes where nature itself is crumbling before God and it implores the reader to tremble in the presence of the Lord. This was a good Psalm for me this morning to set the tone of this summer whose waters are muddy. Where do it begin? 

I must begin by trembling in the presence of God.

I must not hide from Him or hide from where He is sending me. Who hid in the Bible? Jonah. So I read Jonah. Here's what I learned from the meager forty-eight verse book in the Old Testament:

God calls Jonah up for the task of exhorting the city of Nineveh as we all know. We also know that Jonah runs from this task. But I noticed it says, "Jonah rose to fee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." (Jonah 1:3). Jonah was not running away from Nineveh because he wasn't fond of the food there or because they slap people with fishes (alluding, of course, to the Veggie Tales adaptation). He ran from the presence of God. It explicitly states this multiple times. This means a couple of things. It means that God's presence was resting there. Obviously it means that Jonah decided to forgo an opportunity to labor for God, but a deeper layer of Jonah's heart is exposed when we understand that He ran from God's presence. He fell apart just as the nature did in Psalm 114. 

Contrary to what we would believe about Nineveh, God was working in their hearts. We see that manifested in the conviction that falls on their masses. Jonah set out to flee from God's employment and God redirected him back to Nineveh. Jonah seemed fine with this when he was miraculously preserved in the girth of a fish. The message had gone through that God is the one who brings about salvation. Now, this is a lesson I learned a hard way in India. But in the past couple weeks I've forgotten this. I have even been telling people! I've done nothing but tell God's story to people since I've been back. I needed to look at Jonah's life this morning to feel that truth again. 

"behold, something greater than Jonah is here." (Luke 11:32)

Jesus said this. If Jonah, a man completely unwilling to follow the move of God and sorrowful just after seeing the move of God, can play a crucial role in the revival of Nineveh, how much more will Jesus? How much more will those with the Spirit? We don't have the spirit of Jonah. We have Christ in us! Let us learn lessons from Jonah and see his story for what it is. Let us learn more from being in the presence of God the first time and imitating the obedience of Christ.