Jonah is swallowed by a fish which had been appointed by the
Lord for that very purpose. What a
merciful God Jonah has. Surely, given
the mercy of God to Jonah in his sin he will have a change of heart,
recognizing that he doesn't deserve God's mercy. Surely his arrogance and pride will be a
thing of the past. Not a chance. His prayer from the belly of the fish is full
of piety, I was cast from your presence, I thought I would never see your holy
place again, and then I prayed, I remembered that my only source of help was
from the one who had put me here. No
recognition is there that this was due to sin, it would seem he is claiming the
innocence of Job in this matter. Can you
imagine the Lord rolling His eyes at this line, "Those
who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love." Jonah is still looking down on others.
Why can the disciples believe they can do
as Jesus commands? They have seen Jesus
do the same things He now sends them to do and they are His disciples. The goal of being a disciple is to be like
your rabbi and if your rabbi heals people and sends you to do the same then you
believe He has the power to commit this charge to you. It is an act of extraordinary faith and yet
we have the same rabbi and He has sent us out with the message of proclaiming
the coming of the kingdom. Are we
believing that the proclamation will be accompanied with a demonstration of
power and of the actual breaking in of the kingdom in keeping with Isaiah
62? Are we more like the disciples or
like Jonah?
Paul gets a word from the Lord prior to sailing and yet the
guard put more faith in the owner and captain of the ship and the majority then
voted to sail on. Can anyone argue with
them, they have experience of the sea but Paul is a tentmaker? When they experience the difficulty Paul
spoke of, he steps up with an I told you so but also that if they will now
listen they will not lose their lives, only the ship. They are finally willing to try anything,
they have exhausted their knowledge and it has availed them nothing. Frequently, we do exactly that in our
lives. We have to come to the end of
what we know before we are willing to listen and obey the Lord. Will we ever learn?
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