East or West?
Jonah 1:1-3 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
I feel led to spend some time in Jonah, to write from there possibly too. I awoke this morning earlier than usual, for I have a lot on my mind. The pressures of life, seemingly lots of big things on my plate that preoccupy my mind. The things many times that God places there; callings on your life for obedience; changes in your life that make you uncomfortable; the big things that lurk beneath the surface, for many times they are the messages from God. I too, like Jonah seemingly choose to run from them sometimes. Why do we do that? We cannot run from God! In the start of my study I have come upon the complexity of this book. Yet in the early stages of this prophetic narrative it is simple; we cannot escape the call of God on our lives.
Jonah heard God plainly tell him to go to Nineveh and preach repentance to those who were of the evilest nature. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and the Assyrian army was the evilest of all in their debauchery against those they conquered. The theories for why he fled may differ, but the flight is what may also apply in our lives. When we feel those tugs on our heart from God, do we too turn our backs on Him and go the opposite direction? Jonah went as far in the opposite direction known to him. Tarshish was believed to be a somewhere in Spain, the eastern outermost boundary known at that time. We cannot flee from the omni-presence of God. He is the all knowing, all encompassing, Sovereign Ruler of the universe.
We get scared, we get comfortable, we get lazy. God may be calling you out to do something you cannot imagine doing, or something you simply resist. The power of God is found in the tasks you cannot complete, and the presence of God is found where you resist. Your resistance is the power of sin in your life to even imagine the defiance on the call of obedience. Romans 6:16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? The power of sin is that idleness or denial in the answer of that call. The obedience is the road to righteousness that He has laid out before you and I.
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