Discovering Myself in Jonah.

Fear.

Fear isn’t a lack of trust.

Fear is trusting in the wrong things.

Fear pulls us in.

Fear swallows us up.

Fear paralyzes us.

Fear is haunting.

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’ But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the Lord.”

Jonah. The man in the whale’s belly. Jonah has always confused me. He’s perplexing, or at least he used to be. He hears directly from the Lord and what does he do? Well, the exact opposite of what The Lord tells him to do. I don’t know about y’all but in the moment you read that you can’t help but to think, “What the heck Jonah? Are you stupid?”

I’ve spent the last few days really trying to understand Jonah. Who is this man and why would he choose to run the opposite way of the Lord? Jonah knew the power and majesty of the Lord and he still chose to flee. A few verses later in chapter 1, Jonah tells the men on the boat to Tarshish, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” See, Jonah knew who God was, and he even said he feared him. So why did Jonah flee if He knew God? Still confused, I studied on.

Soon, after Jonah was thrown overboard, swallowed by the whale, and thrown back up on the beach, he went to Nineveh just like God had originally wanted Jonah to do. Jonah proclaimed to the people that their city would be overthrown by God in 40 days. The people of Nineveh began repenting, turning away from their sin, asking for forgiveness and fasting on behalf of the Lord. Even the King issued a proclamation to the city telling them that they must fast, cover themselves in sackcloth, and call out mightily to God turning away from their evil deeds. And guess what? God had grace on them, God showed mercy to the city of Nineveh and spared them from being destroyed. What a relief right? Well, for the people of Nineveh, yes. But for Jonah, not so much.

This is where the true reason Jonah fled comes to surface. Jonah was afraid. Jonah was gripped by fear and ran the other way. While I think Jonah may have been afraid of going into Nineveh, afraid of the rebellious people and how they might respond to the Lord’s message; we realize in chapter four the real fear that swallowed Jonah. Verse two says, “And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.’” Jonah despised the people of Nineveh. He wanted them to be destroyed. Jonah was gripped by the fear that what he wanted would not come of what He planned.

Uh oh. Okay God. I see it now. Not only am I afraid to step into what you tell me to do, but I’m afraid it will not turn out the way I want it to. Talk about conviction.

We let fear control us. Even when we clearly know what God has told us to do, what we are supposed to do, and even when we do it, we stand in fear. We still, even after obedience, walk in fear of the way things will end. We have the way we want them to end but more often than not it isn’t the way it will end. We, like Jonah, know the characteristics of God and we flee, we run for “our lives” and little do we know we are only running from life. I pray only that if I ever flee from “the presence of the Lord” that He will be as gracious to me as He was to Jonah, and He will allow me to be swallowed by a whale.

I struggle with fear. And the Lord has made that so evident to me in the last month. I’m scared out of my mind to return to school. It’s a cut-throat environment. I have yet to meet one Christ follower who will be joining me in this journey for the next two years. I know it’s an amazing opportunity to be immersed in a dry, gospel starved environment, one I will inevitably face once I am abroad on the mission field. Maybe, that’s the Lord’s whole purpose. I am so afraid and I’m praying through scripture daily. Like Jonah, I know where God wants me (nursing school), and like Jonah went to Nineveh, I am going to school. But I don’t want to continue to walk in fear that what I want to happen, won’t happen. I’m working on surrendering this fear to the Lord.

I fear too much in life. I fear things that could happen every day, and I fear my future won’t turn out the way I see it, even knowing the characteristics of God. I don’t want this, and I pray you would flee from fear. Fear the Lord, not His plans.