He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

2 Kings 14:25 NIV

“The Bible was written for us, but it was not written to us. […] Reading the Bible literally means reading it as the authors intended it to be read.”

— John H. Walton

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Jonah 1:1-2 NIV

“Sending an Israelite to preach to Nineveh in the eighth century BC is a little like sending a Jew to preach to Berlin in the 1930s. Short of a stupendous miracle, the prospect of success is not high, and a forlorn, gruesome death looks much more likely.”

— Phillip Cary, Jonah (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)

But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Jonah 1:3 NIV

If you were running from God, how would you know?

Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

Jonah 1:4-6 NIV

Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah 1:7-9 NIV

This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

Jonah 1:10-11 NIV

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

Jonah 1:12 NIV

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 1:17 NIV

Who is God when we are at our worst?

“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”

— Corrie ten Boom

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them.”

— Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon and Three

Has there ever been a season where you were running from God? Sometimes it’s obvious. Other times, it’s happening beneath the surface in the stagnancy and stubbornness of our heart. What was that season of life like for you?

Jonah 1 makes an astounding claim: that God caused the storm and sent the fish. And yet this wasn’t to condemn Jonah, but correct him. Looking back, was there a hard season that felt like punishment that you later came to see God’s hand in?