As you read through the four chapters in the book of Jonah, you will see how God demonstrates again and again that His way of working in this world is often, fundamentally different than how or what we would expect or how we would work in that same situation if we were in control of it. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
God’s infinite thoughts are far greater than our limited ability to comprehend them. The psalmist confirmed this truth in Psalm 139:17, “How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!” God’s thoughts and His ways may not always make sense to us, but we can rest in the knowledge that He is always good and therefore, everything He does is good according to Psalm 13:6, "I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me."
God does not restrict Himself to reaching out to those that we reach out to according to the mercy and grace that we want to extend. For our tendency is to reach out to those we love and who are important to us. God however, reaches out to those we do not reach out to.
In the beginning of Jonah chapter one, the sailors who were pagans, (meaning non Hebrew people) upon the impending storm that was approaching their vessel, “cried out to his own god” Jonah 1:5. While there is no indication that Jonah seemed to think of these gentile sailors as a mission field but merely a means to an end, to get him where he had determined to run away from God to. These men were only as important to his journey as the mast and sails of the ship, but not to anyone to whom his prophetic message might apply.
God however, did not share Jonah’s perspective. Instead, God reached out to the sailors through his unwilling prophet. The only thing Jonah was willing to say about his God was that He was, “The Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” in 1:9. By that time the sailors were beginning to fear God and in verse 14, they “cried out to the Lord,” rather than to their individual gods and in verse 15. God revealed His awesome power, displaying that He truly was the God Jonah spoke of and that He alone created and controlled all of heaven and earth.
The scriptures say that, “the raging sea grew calm.” Whether there was instantaneous calm, or a more natural lessening of the storm, it was abrupt enough to deeply impress the sailors. They “greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him” in verse 16.
The evidence that these men made sacrifices and vows reflected a change in their beliefs as well as conversions to a faith in the one true God on the part of the sailors. It is also evidence of God’s tendency to how he does not work by our rules, ways and thoughts. There was probably no one praying for these sailors; no intentional reaching out or building relationships on the part of the missionary; this may very well have been the first time they had even heard the name of God. And yet God worked through what satan was meaning for all their harm, to God using Jonah and his surroundings, completely without Jonah realizing it, to bring these sailors to salvation.
God wastes nothing in our lives, even our rebellion and mistakes. God uses everything to complete the work that He intends to do. Just like Jonah, thinking that he could run from what God was asking of him to do, he quickly discovered that there was no place so far or so deep to run, that God would not find him and make the needed correction in Jonah's life to bring him into obedience. What are you running from today my friend, that is keeping you from surrendering your life to God? Your wrong doings and failures may feel like a waste to you, but to God, they are simply stepping stones to something greater. They are stepping stones to get you to Him.
Hold Fast, -Bren
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