When God's Will Gets In The Way

Jonah
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2007 Harold Dinsmore

“Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare thereof, and went down in it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” (1:1-3). Jonah was quite the incredible character. if not unusual. But as prophets go, he as normal as most. God wanted Jonah to go to the people of Nineveh and preach judgment unless they repent. So being the loyal servant of the Lord, he did what every red-blooded believer would do, he went in the opposite direction. But more than likely the heart of Jonah’s problem was that Nineveh was an enemy of Israel. It, too, like Babylon was located in the heart of what we know as modern day Iraq. He was bigoted and unforgiving. Besides this, he said in his heart, “I have other plans, I don’t want to do that right now.” God’s will got in his way, so to speak. What do we do when God’s will begins to mess with our plans or is opposite of what we want to do? Well, we know the story, don’t we?

So Jonah took off on a ship bound from Joppa to Tarshish. Which, by the way is in Spain, southwestern Spain. While on board, a gale wind blew and a storm swept over them. The people on board started praying, the captain went down to the hold of the ship and there Jonah was fast asleep. He couldn’t believe it! He yelled at him to wake him up and demanded that he start praying.