Week 4 September 2026 - REFLECTON ON PROBLEMATIC FLEEING FROM GOD

“But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.”  Jonah 1:3

Sandwiched between Obadiah and Micah, the Book of Jonah centers on the big fish that swallowed the disobedient prophet living in the northern kingdom of Israel.  Stuck in its belly for three days, he had conversations with God, repented, was spit out and went to the grand capital of the Assyrian Empire.  As instructed, he announced, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”  To his shocking surprise, the city believed God and repented.  The king rose from his throne, put on sackcloth as did every citizen; even their cows wore covered with it.  As a result, the prophet put on a pity-party for himself and sulked.  Nineveh didn’t deserve God’s mercy and he was angry that He had lavished it on such a horrible nation.  The Assyrians were feared and hated for being ruthless in their pursuit of imperial expansion and control.  Their public torture methods were “stomach-churning,” as one commentator described their publicly carried out punishments.  The Assyrian empire collapsed in 609 BC.

If some are led to brave the remaining paragraphs of Jonah’s final ordeal, a vine and worm come into view.  Since I’m now going to switch to sneak a good egg and a fresh onion into the narrative, it may make for some sulking.  A bad egg the other day made me suffer.  It was soft-boiled for a couple of extra minutes so it wouldn’t be runny, but run away it did.  By the time I had poured my orange juice and coffee, it had vanished.  That sort of thing can happen when I’m preoccupied, but the key or misplaced item will show up and get put back in their proper place.  My bad breakfast egg had vanished for good, perhaps in the garbage disposal or on a date with Humpty Dumpty.

Most of us church-going folk are good eggs, but still prone to crack up from life’s stressors.  Now Jesus happily starts His redemptive work.  Our inside is an onion with many layers and He lays each one bare according to Luke 12:51, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but divisions.”  His embarrassed mother and brothers had thought Him to be crazy and tried to haul Him out of pubic view.

Let’s revisit Jonah’s three-day confinement inside the big fish belly.  No matter how much he thrashed around with protests, all lame excuses, no sailor would jump ship or mobilize Israel to come relieve the torment.  Nobody could pry open the fish’s mouth to get inside.  Who knows, we might have to feel sorry for the scaly jailer.  When a baby is about to be born, it takes tough-to-endure contractions to expel it forcefully from the womb.  Scripture says that angels in heaven rejoice when the fruit of Christ’s suffering produces a new born-again believer who has now joined the ranks of the eternally redeemed.  If the Holy Spirit could speedily convert those ancient Ninevites, we might not have to go on Amazon to buy sackcloth for our freaked out pets.  As the Bible states, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”