My Jonah story
If I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me. Psalm 139:9—10
Read Jonah 1
I’ve done it. I’m pretty sure I have. I’ve run from the Lord. Yes, I have. Jonah is treated with far more respect by the heathen than he could have hoped. He’s not wanted to talk to the heathen about the Lord. Yet, despite himself, he can’t help it: when he tells them who he is he can’t leave God out, as much as he tries to. And they, despite themselves, cannot save him. He’s ultimately in the Lord’s hands, and they ultimately are the Lord’s instruments as the Lord deals with poor Jonah. This little bit of the story, which involves something like a death and a resurrection three days later, and promises the world-wide publishing of the Good News, this section of Jonah’s story encourages me to look eagerly for an opportunity to connect with what I have called ‘the heathen’. By ‘connect’ I mean in true friendship. Otherwise, surely, I’m still running from the Lord.
You are the God of heaven. You made the dry land upon which all peoples of all languages and cultures live. You love what you have made. That is unmistakable to me when I consider Jesus and all that he has done. And I, this silly little Jonah, know that you have called me to be involved in your world-wide love, your all-peoples love. I know, too, and I admit, that I have organised my life according to my own limited loves, far less generous than yours. Yet you have put me close at hand with people who have treated me so well, people not of my outlook. They have been your hands toward me. I thank you for them. And, as I pray in this way on this night, prepare me as you did Jonah, to cross the barriers I have erected between myself and others. For, truly, I am in the hands that made the world.