Jonah - a man to emulate?

Perhaps one reason why the 'X Factor' is so popular is because people wish and dream about being someone else... perhaps because we are not sure if we are achieving what we want to in our own lives, or if we are doing what we are 'meant' to do, or being our best selves...

The great blessing of a relationship with God is that it brings meaning to our lives, to each and every individual life. We are not just part of a random universe, the next step in a random evolutionary process; we are in relationship with the Creator God, a God who calls us his children. He loves us so much he was ready to let his own precious son suffer and die in our place.

If life is not random, it has a purpose, and our core purpose is to live and grow in relationship with God. Part of that relationship might involve God calling us to fulfil some particular role or purpose - to use our gifts, our skills and talents, or more simply, live as the person he has made us to be, and so help bring light to the world. This is true for all of us, however young or old, however frail or robust. It was true of the disciples, and it was true of Jonah.

Jonah is a wonderful and encouraging example to us. He was called to a purpose which he fulfilled with extreme reluctance and bad grace but God persisted with him. There are four things that strike me about his story.

The first is that he must have listened to God - because he did the opposite of what he was asked to do. Whatever else we might say about Jonah, he obviously heard God: because he did not then carry on with what he was doing, he legged it to try to get as far away as he could from God's purpose.

So the first simple challenge is - do we make space to listen to God? Or is our routine relentless, and are we deafened by our own desires and expectations? We need time to pray, to be still, to open the channel to God, to read his word.

Secondly, he did not like what he heard. He was asked to tell Nineveh to repent, to change their wicked ways, and Nineveh was a very large city full of ungodly people who Jonah thought should not be forgiven. Maybe too he was afraid for his own safety. So, a question: what happens if God nudges us into doing something unexpected, something risky, something which goes against the grain? The message of Jonah's story is that being with God, going in his direction, is actually the only safe and sensible place to be.

Thirdly, God persisted with him. Sometimes we can worry about whether we have heard God right, or if we have missed something he would say to us. The message of Jonah is that God doesn't give up on us. God takes amazing steps to ensure that Jonah does what he is asked to do. This is an encouragement! We don't need to be afraid that we have missed God's guidance, or to lose heart because we have gone in the wrong direction - he will keep on directing us from wherever we have got to!

And fourthly? Well, things just don't turn out as Jonah expected. He had a very dim view of the Ninevites,  he knew their reputation. They deserved the worst, in his view. But they responded to his message, once he delivered it, without hesitation. They didn't try to kill him, they repented. And God saw their hearts and judged their repentance was genuine; and he forgave them.

Did Jonah rejoice at this? Not a bit of it. He was furious because he was still convinced they deserved punishing. How dare God do the opposite to what Jonah had expected? God has to shrivel up a pineapple tree that  Jonah was sulking under, and whose shade he valued, in order to show him the value of every part of his creation, and of his love as its source of sustenance.

When we think of our own lives, what should happen to us? Are we faultless? Yet God freely forgives us as soon as we turn to him. And whenever he calls us, he calls us to share this miracle of grace in the world. Who would have expected the son of God to die a common villain's death, so that we might experience life?

Michael Harrison, Reader