Jonah

Navigating a God Centred Life

Colin S. Smith

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781845509385

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Embrace God’s Call

God has a way of disturbing our dreams. We plan our families, our finances, our ministries and our futures. Then God breaks into the plan, and suddenly life is set on a different course. A child is born, a loved one dies, an accident happens, an illness is diagnosed, a disaster hits, the stock market collapses, you lose your job, your son rebels, your church divides; your life is torn apart.

When God interrupts your life, He is calling you to follow Him in a new way. By breaking into your settled pattern, He is moving you to a new place where you can make fresh discoveries of His grace. Embracing God’s call is never easy, but this is where the pursuit of a God-centered life begins, and where the shame of a self-centered life is exposed.

Jonah had no idea of how self-absorbed he had become until God disturbed his comfortable life. He was devoted to ministry and listened, as a prophet, to the voice of God. But while he was ministering to others, his own heart had grown cold and, when God called Jonah to something new, the hidden layers of his inner life were revealed.

Jonah enjoyed a comfortable life until God interrupted his dream. Born in a godly home, and raised with knowledge of the truth, he quickly developed a love for God and a heart for ministry. People in his hometown of Gath Hepher enjoyed Jonah’s preaching and, with his obvious gift as an effective communicator, he soon established a fine reputation as a much loved and deeply respected teacher of God’s Word.

Early in his ministry, God gave Jonah a prophetic scoop that established his ministry. Jonah announced that the borders of Israel would be extended during the reign of King Jeroboam and when this happened, his reputation was made. He was hailed as God’s “servant Jonah … the prophet from Gath Hepher,” as if there wasn’t another prophet worthy of the name (from 2 Kings 14:25).¹

Serving in Gath Hepher, Jonah enjoyed the luxury of a loyal and responsive audience. Godly people wanted to hear His Word in those days just as they do today, and so Jonah would have been in big demand. If he was in ministry today, Jonah would have a full schedule of speaking engagements, his books would be best sellers, and his page on Facebook would be bombarded by fans. Jonah enjoyed a good life doing good work in a good place. He was living his dream until, one day, God interrupted his life.

A dream interrupted

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” (Jonah 1:1-2)

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes and try to imagine what this interruption was like. You are enjoying a successful ministry among God’s people. You are well known and well appreciated for your celebrated prophecy about restoring the borders of Israel. You feel settled, fulfilled and contented, but now the Word of God disturbs your comfortable ‘Christian’ life.

God is calling you to leave the people you love, move to a new location and venture into an uncertain future. Your assignment is to serve people of another race, who regard you as an enemy, and you are to do this by speaking ‘against’ the great city of Nineveh. Instead of prophesying blessing on God’s people, your new calling is to pronounce judgment on God’s enemies. Nothing in this new calling is attractive to you. It all seems like an overwhelming loss.

The Word of God came to this successful prophet with a settled ministry and, when it did, the music stopped in Jonah’s life. I expect that Jonah was caught up in the relentless demands and opportunities of his ministry in Gath Hepher, but activity is a poor substitute for obedience, and God’s call revealed how far he was from living a God-centered life.

If you enjoy what God has given you now, you will not find it easy when He calls you to something new. The more comfortable you are, the harder it will be. I love the work God has given me to do and so I find it really hard to keep my heart in a place where I can honestly say to the Lord, “If there’s something else you want me to do, I’m willing to do it.” But without that spirit, a job, a home or even a ministry can easily become an idol.

When God interrupts your life, He breaks the idol. Nothing that He gives you in this world is yours forever. Your entire life is “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). The home that you live in is yours for a time. The work that you do is yours for a time. The people you love are yours for a time. One day, others will live in your home, and others will continue your work. One day, others will have your money and your possessions; the opportunities now entrusted to you will be given to them.

Loving my work as I do, it’s good for me to remember that, one day, someone else will sit in ‘my’ office. Their books will be on ‘my’ shelves, and their stamp will be on the ministry that is so precious to me. I need to hold what God has given lightly. It will not be forever. The person who learns to number his or her days gains a heart of wisdom (Ps. 90:12).

The fear of something new

In over thirty years as a pastor, I have only moved once. That was after sixteen years of serving a wonderful congregation in Enfield, North London. Saying goodbye wasn’t easy, but we were helped by anticipating the joy of serving a new congregation in the suburbs of Chicago. Jonah had no such comfort. Losing the work that he loved was compounded by the fearsome prospect of his new calling: to preach judgment to the enemies of God.

In Jonah’s day, one dark superpower cast a shadow over all the surrounding nations. The Assyrians were known for their brutality. They had refined the art of torture in ways that would make you wish you hadn’t read of them, so I’ll spare you the details. It’s enough to know that the Assyrians were the terror of Jonah’s time.

Nineveh was the decadent and violent center of the Assyrian empire. The prophet Nahum describes it as “the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims” (Nahum 3:1). Not exactly the kind of place you would choose for a vacation. How would you feel if God called you to serve Him in a land known for terror and torture?

For Jonah to move from a ministry of pronouncing blessing on God’s friends to the work of pronouncing judgment on God’s enemies would mean embracing an unrecognizably different life and it is hardly surprising that he balked at the prospect of what God was calling him to endure.

I’ve tried to imagine Jonah’s interaction with God:

“Jonah, I want you to go …”

“Lord I am really happy with what I am doing for You here.”

“I want you to do something else.”

“You want me to leave the work I love?”

“That’s right.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“Nineveh.”

“That’s in enemy territory. There are terrorists and torturers there. What do you want me to say?”

“Preach against the city, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

It’s hardly surprising that Nineveh’s wickedness had come up before God. It was certainly before the eyes of God’s people. Many in Israel would have prayed for Assyria to be overthrown, just as Christians today might pray for the demise of nations that pose a threat to our way of life. If God had destroyed Nineveh as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it would have brought great relief and joy to Israel and to the surrounding nations. But God loved the Assyrian people. He saw their wickedness, and yet even when it came up before Him, He had compassion on them and reached out to them, by sending Jonah.

Nothing is more disturbing to a comfortable faith or a comfortable church than God’s passion for the world. Jonah was happy serving people of his own race, but when God called him to serve people of another race, in a country hostile to his own, the selfishness of Jonah’s heart was exposed. The prophet known and acclaimed for his fruitful ministry had lost touch with God’s heart and God’s mission in the world. Jonah was a long way from navigating a God-centered life, but no one, not even the prophet himself, would have known it until God stepped in.

How God interrupts your life

God’s Word came to Jonah with such force and directness that there was no doubt in Jonah’s mind that God was speaking and that God was sending him to Nineveh. Being a prophet meant that Jonah received direct revelation from God. The Lord spoke to him as a man speaks with his friend.

It’s different for us. God speaks to us through the Scriptures, and since the Bible does not contain individual instructions on where you should live, whom you should marry, or what work you should do, God’s interruptions in your life will usually come through secondary means. An interruption may come through unwelcome decisions made by other people, or through circumstances beyond your control. Something unexpected happens and your whole life is completely different. You lose the life that you love and you face a future that you fear.

So let’s look at some examples of what God’s interruption might look like in your life today. The characters in the following scenes are fictitious, but they represent familiar situations. We begin with a challenge close to the one faced by Jonah.

Jim and Julie’s new assignment

Jim and Julie had served as missionaries for ten years. They were the first couple to join the field leaders when their mission began work in the country where they serve. Making the move half way round the world from their home in the American midwest took extraordinary courage. Learning a new language and adapting to an alien culture seemed an impossible task, but Jim and Julie persevered.

After ten years of hard work, a small but robust fellowship of local Christians had been established with about fifty believers meeting in homes for worship, teaching and encouragement. Jim and Julie were like a mother and father to these people. The church had become their life.

The previous year, the mission with whom they served adopted a policy that called for missionaries to move to a new assignment after ten years. Someone from the mission visited with Jim and Julie to talk about what this would mean for them. It was not an easy meeting.

“You don’t understand,” Jim said. “These believers need us here. We’re not in a position to move to another town.”

The man from the mission pressed his point. “These believers belong to Christ, not to you,” he said. “As long as you are here, they will depend on you. They won’t step up and take responsibility unless and until you move on.”

“Besides,” he continued, “the mission you signed up for was to reach this country, and there are other towns where new churches could be planted. You have shown great courage in leaving your home and building a new life here. Now we are asking you to leave the work you have established and bring the gospel to another community.”

After the meeting Julie told Jim that she would “rather go back home than put up with being pushed about like this.” She felt it was up to each missionary to decide what is best for his or her own situation, and she didn’t have a good word to say about the man from the mission.

Michael’s company

As his wife was pregnant with their first child, Michael made the decision that he wanted to start his own business. He had grown weary of working for people who cared more about themselves than their customers. He wanted to create his own software company, where he could glorify God with the way he and his team acted toward customers and employees in the marketplace. Michael wanted to set a godly example for his family, and felt sure that he could do this better by building his own company based on godly values than by carrying on in the frustrations of his present work. With a child on the way, Michael felt called to pursue this dream now.

Under his leadership, Michael’s new company thrived. Prospective customers, talented employees, and shrewd investors were drawn to his company’s fresh way of doing business. As the business grew, Michael received many accolades. Three years after the company’s founding, he was named one of the top one hundred entrepreneurs in the country. Shortly thereafter, his Christian college alma mater asked him to deliver the commencement speech at its graduation ceremony on the topic of “Godly values in the world of commerce.” Things were going better than he could have ever dreamed.

One day, Michael’s investors called to tell him they had received an unsolicited bid to buy the company. The offer made financial sense for all of the company’s stakeholders, and opened the door for Michael’s company to reach new markets around the world.

The problem for Michael is that he would no longer be the CEO. The acquiring company wanted to keep him on as vice-president of product management. Instead of being the leader, Michael would have to be a follower, and Michael had got so used to his role as the unquestioned person in charge that the idea of working under the direction of someone else was making him uncomfortable.

Michael knew that the takeover made sense for his employees, for his customers and for the investors. But the change wouldn’t be easy for Michael. So he began taking actions that slowed down the deal, and soon he was at the point of jeopardizing it altogether.

Michael started out with a vision of modeling godly values in which he cared for his employees and customers. But the takeover was uncovering hidden layers of self-interest in his own heart of which he had not even been aware.

Angela’s daughter

Angela had raised two daughters without support from her husband, who walked out shortly after their younger daughter was born. Living in a small town, she had survived in large measure through the help of her family and friends, all of whom were deeply involved in the local church.

When her husband left, Angela determined that she would make a success of raising her family. She found a part-time job and then poured herself into providing a stable, loving and God-honoring home for Christine and Stacy.

Angela’s daughters had all the advantages of a thorough grounding in truth. She taught them to memorize Scripture verses, and led family prayers at the end of their meals. The girls made good friends in the youth group, and God used them to lead other girls in their school to faith in Christ. People in the church commented on the sweetness of these girls and how their modest charm was a credit to their remarkable mother.

Angela met regularly with three other women who had covenanted together to pray for their children. These women encouraged each other in maintaining ordered and godly homes, but none of them exceeded Angela in putting their high aspirations into practice. Angela’s energy astonished her friends. Her disciplines were exemplary, and her capacity to handle the bumps and bruises of life seemed greater than the other women, who were doing the same job without having to work and with the support of a loving husband.

Angela’s eldest daughter, Christine, married her high school sweetheart and settled with her husband a few miles from her mother’s home. They attended the church and usually came ‘home’ for Sunday lunch. Christine was her mother’s joy and delight.

Stacy was another story. As a senior at college, she hooked up with Kamal with whom she had almost nothing in common. Hearing that Kamal was not a Christian, Angela was immediately anxious, and her anxiety was intensified as Kamal seemed reluctant to visit their home, and was largely uncommunicative when he did.

Stacy’s sweetness seemed to vanish overnight, and Angela noticed that her younger daughter was becoming increasingly withdrawn. There was a tension in the home when Stacy was around, something Angela had not experienced before and did not know how to handle. As the tension descended into conflict, mother and daughter soon found it difficult to be in the same room. Then Stacy walked out and moved in with Kamal.

Angela was brokenhearted and felt that God had let her down. Why had God allowed things to go so wrong with Stacy after Angela had poured herself into honoring the Lord in the way she raised her children? It made no sense to Angela. Then, she stopped meeting with the prayer group and was rarely seen at church. Christine couldn’t figure out what had happened to her mother. For years, Angela had taught the girls to honor and trust the Lord, whatever happens. But now what had happened with Stacy had eclipsed everything else for Angela.

Quitting Points

Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.
(Jonah 1:3)

When God interrupts your life, you may find that your comfort is more important and your obedience more conditional than you thought. That’s how it was with Jonah. God’s call exposed a thinly-veiled selfishness beneath the surface of the prophet’s life.

Recoiling from what lay in the future, and knowing that he could not hold on to the past, Jonah decided it was time to quit. God had called him to Nineveh in the east. He went to the harbor at Joppa, and found a ship bound for Tarshish in the west.

What does it mean to “run away from the Lord”? Jonah was a prophet, well-schooled in all the Scriptures that had been written at that time. He knew that God is present everywhere, and would have been familiar with David’s words in the Psalms:

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence? …

If I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

(Ps. 139:7, 9-10)

Jonah knew that he could never escape from God’s presence, but he felt that he could avoid God’s call. In boarding the ship he was resigning from the work God had given him to do. He was saying, in effect, “There are other things that I can do in life besides bringing the Word of the Lord. I’m quitting this ministry and I’m going to make a new life for myself in Tarshish.”

Why Tarshish? Why not stay at home and continue what he was doing in Gath Hepher? Being a prophet meant that God spoke to Jonah directly as He had spoken to Moses. When Jonah refused the call to Nineveh, he knew that God would no longer give him these prophetic revelations. Without revelation, Jonah’s ministry as a prophet in Gath Hepher or anywhere else was over.

Staying at home and crafting his own prophecies was not an option. That would have made Jonah a false prophet and, in Israel, the penalty for false prophecy was death by stoning. Staying silent in Gath Hepher wasn’t an option either. If a man known for speaking the Word of God suddenly had nothing to say, it would soon be obvious to everyone that there was a problem.

If Jonah had stayed in Gath Hepher, his rebellion would soon have been exposed. So the choice was simple: obey God and go to Nineveh, or quit the ministry and begin a new life with a new identity in another place. Jonah chose the latter and decided on Tarshish.

Jonah was respected as a man who spoke God’s Word and led God’s people, but he placed boundaries on where he would live, what he would do and how he would serve. When God disrupted his plan, his selfish heart was exposed and he quit.

At first sight, Jonah’s experience may seem light years away from yours, but when the horizon looks bleak in your work, your family or your ministry, a new life in a new place can seem like an attractive option. When you feel that you are no longer appreciated, or that your hard work is bringing little reward, the temptation to slip away from the ties and commitments that define your life will be very real. The ship to Tarshish looks attractive, but it is heading into a storm.

The boat in the harbor

He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. (Jonah 1:3)

When Jonah made his decision, everything seemed to fall into place. He wanted to go to Tarshish, and when he arrived at Joppa, he found a ship bound for that port. We’re not told how Jonah interpreted the waiting ship, but I guess that he saw it as confirmation that he had made the...

Table of contents

• Testimonials
• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. Embrace God's Call
• 2. Receive God's Provision
• 3. Ask for God's Help
• 4. Believe God's Word
• 5. Affirm God's Grace
• 6. Submit to God's Providence
• 7. Reflect God's Compassion
• 8. Rejoice in God's Salvation
• More Books from Christian Focus
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