Text: Jonah 1:17
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” —Revelation 3:19
It’s been over thirty years and yet I can still remember sitting in the Marion Regional Juvenile Detention Center like it was yesterday. My teenage incarceration felt like the end of my life at the time, but little did I know then it was just the beginning. As I wrote about in my book 13-Foot Coffins, God used those dire circumstances of getting locked up to bring me into a real relationship with Jesus and to be awakened to a whole new perspective and purpose in life.
Uncomfortable and painful circumstances are never meant to diminish us, but God can certainly use them to recalibrate us to what He is up to and what He is speaking into our lives. As C.S. Lewis observed:
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Jonah had been on the run from God. He put others at risk and failed to see the Ninevites through a lens of compassion—being worthy of his time and ministry. But God hurled a great storm upon the sea of Jonah’s rebellion and then He “appointed” a great fish to swallow up the renegade prophet. That massive aquatic beast was God’s megaphone to rouse Jonah, who was demonstrating tone-deafness to God’s mission and people who needed his ministry.
When giving attention to this dramatic story in the Old Testament, people often get sidetracked by the possibility of being swallowed up by such a literal marine creature and then surviving to tell about it. We don’t know exactly what kind of a fish this was. The Bible isn’t specific. Some scholars speculate it was a species of whale. To get stuck on this debate is to miss the main point, which is what we know unambiguously: God, Who is capable of doing anything that He wants to do in order to get our attention, sent a “lifeboat” fish to rescue Jonah from himself.
Jesus himself declared the veracity of Jonah’s story in Matthew 12:40, where he confirmed the account of Jonah being three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish. God loved Jonah too much to let him get away. The physical texture of what swallowed up Jonah is not as important as the fact that God “appointed” uncomfortable circumstances to stop Jonah in his tracks and to give him a chance to turn around, course-correct, and realign himself to God’s pleasure and purposes.
We are too much like Jonah. Too often we look at obedience through the lens of comfort, security, and self-preservation, rather than taking up our cross daily and dying to self. Whenever we default to “what’s-in-it-for-me” over servanthood sacrifices, we look a lot like Jonah. Yielding to individualism instead of togetherness with God’s family is very much a Jonah-like portrait. Whenever we find ourselves judging who is and is not worthy of God’s mercy and grace, we are sadly in the same boat as Jonah. It’s been inferred that Jonah may have spent time sulking in self-pity in the fish’s belly for a while before finally repenting and fully seeking God. Perhaps.
CONSIDER: God doesn’t give up on us in our nomadic selfish wandering. He loves us too much to let us sail off pleasantly into the sunset of our spiritual delinquency. He can and will appoint uncomfortable circumstances that may feel very much like the innards of a dark and smelly fish, but never with the intention of crushing us, but to rescue us from ourselves. God disciplines those whom He loves. When we sense that discipline, it is good to be reminded we are loved by the Father and take time to meditate on what He may graciously and patiently be course-correcting in us.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, the fact that grace does not immunize us to your discipline is a beautiful token of your love for us. Give us the understanding to recognize your discipline, and the wisdom to seek you fully when you bring course-correction to our hearts. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Questions for Reflection and/or Group Discussion
- When has God used uncomfortable circumstances in your life to bring about course-correction or a change in perspective?
- Jonah was guilty of judging who was worthy or not worthy of God’s mercy. When have you caught yourself in this prideful posture?
- In what ways can you relate to Jonah’s wandering ways? (Lack of mercy? Callousness? Individualism? Self-preservation? Other?)
- Why is it important for us to be reminded that God disciplines those whom He loves? How is discipline attached to grace or mercy?
- Is there a posture in your heart that needs to be realigned with the heart of God? Is there a particular sin or sinful pattern of which you need to repent?
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