A missionary was preaching, and I got up and ran out of the service
But Jonah ran away from the Lord...
Did you ever just outright blow it? Have you messed up so bad that you think you will never get out of a situation? Do you think that God has left you behind and He's moving forward without you? Did you disobey God and get yourself in a bad relationship or bad debt?
I take comfort in the book of Jonah, because I see that I'm not the only one who messes up.
Here was a prophet of God who ran away from God. Yet, the example of Jonah represents our lives many times. God calls us and we run, or we do the opposite of what he says, and we end up engulfed in a "whale" of problems.
Shortly after I was saved, I went to a church service, where a missionary was preaching. Everything that the missionary was saying was piercing my heart. I knew that God was telling me that I was going to be serving Him in Missions. While he was preaching, I literally jumped up out of my seat and ran out of the Service. I thought that there was no way I was going to any foreign country. I too had become a modern day Jonah.
I literally jumped up out of my seat and ran out of the Service. I too had become a modern day Jonah.
Pastor Joseph A. Nigro
The storm
...such a violent storm arose...
When you first turn from God's Will, everything may go smoothly at first, but then suddenly the storms of life start to rock your boat. Your problems start to overwhelm you and your life begins to have an adverse affect on others. You try to tell others that God's in control, but they are fearful of what's happening in your life and abandon you.
But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights...
Unexpected problems have multiplied and you're totally engulfed in difficulties that are impossible to get out of. You are now riding around in the belly of God's whale, trying to figure out how to get out of your hopeless circumstances. You may have failed God, failed your loved ones, failed yourself, and you feel that it's impossible to get back. I'm sure Jonah wasn't thinking about the distant future while riding in the belly of the whale.
The prayer from inside
From inside the fish Jonah prayed...
Jonah's only concern was to turn back His life to the Author and Finisher of his Faith. He knew he was in "deeper" than he could get out of, and only God could rescue him. Many of us are in such impossible circumstances that only God could get us out and put our feet back on solid ground again. It's when we cry out to Him with a sincere heart and we submit to His Will again that He hears our cries and answers our prayers.
I ran away from God for months shortly after I had ran out of that church Service, and I became a prodigal son. Yet God in His mercy loved me back to Him, and I can now say with a sincere heart that I consider it a honor and a privilege to serve Him in a foreign country.
You are not stuck in the whale
You may think that you failed God's plan so much that you're stuck in the whale for life, but that's not true. Jonah was not the only person who messed up in the Bible. David failed royally as he lied one day and because of his lies all the priests of Nob were murdered. He also committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. Yet the Scriptures tell us that he had a heart after God, and he too cried out to God with a broken and contrite heart.
It does not matter what sin you're committing. God will forgive you and restore you back to the joy of your Salvation (Psalm 51) as long as you confess your sins!
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.
This Scripture tells us that God will restore the years that you lost and will make you usable again for His glory. Despite David's sin, Jesus was a descendent of him. He even used Jonah's failures to represent 3 days of Jonah in the whale, as a comparison of Jesus descending into the ground for three days! So God can turn our failures around and use them for His glory when we seek His will again.
Like Jonah, let our prayer be:
In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and You listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all Your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, 'I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.' The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweeds were wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in, forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer rose to You, to Your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.
Pastor Joseph A. Nigro
A pastor serving in missions overseas, who writes about running from a calling and being brought back to it.