How fast can you run?

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their wickedness has confronted Me.” However, Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, from the Lord’s presence.

Jonah 1:1-3

The first few verses of the book of Jonah are pretty familiar to me. God says go this way; Jonah goes that way. There’s not much suspense in between. God says, “Go”; Jonah says “No”. We are spared any details of a long deliberation process. It doesn’t appear that Jonah “mulled it over”. He just ran. I can give Jonah credit for one thing. He was decisive. Wrong, but decisive. That leads me to ask, “Why?” This is where my familiarity gives way to some critical thinking. Typically, we don’t act decisively at serious junctures in life unless there are some deep issues underlying our response. I’m talking about anger, pain, fear, prejudice and the like. I don’t pretend to have a conclusive answer to why Jonah ran. But, the remaining portion of the book gives us a number of clues. God shines a creative light to some major issues with Jonah’s attitude. Here’s something I take away from Jonah. As the book begins, Jonah chose to say “no” to God because He would rather run from God than submit his issues to God and obey. Historically, Jonah wasn’t the first person to do that and he wasn’t the last. Today is a good day to consider our own choices in light of our own issues. Expose them to the light. Bring them before a God who knows you and heals you. Have you brought your fears to God? Have you brought your anger to God? Obedience can be held captive to many underlying issues.