Jonah's Rebellion

             Jonah's Rebellion

   
           He lived in a time where most prophesies  foretold  were advantageous to Israel's conquest of many surrounding nations. Nineveh was a neighboring nation that had oppressed the people of Israel for a long time, if the Israelites had their way they would burn Nineveh to the ground.
 On this beautiful morning, Jonah went about his day to day work suddenly a call came from his Boss "Jonah" his boss called out and he answered "yes Sir!"
"I have an assignment for you, drop all you have on your table today and head  out to Nineveh, I need you to go to the heart of the enemies  city and preach the good news to them, tell them about the doom that will come if they don't turn their hearts to me" he ordered.
 Jonah's jaw dropped, he was completely bewildered at this request, all through his years of work as a prophet never had he had an extremely difficult task as this. " but sir, I'm confused right now... Nineveh? Those people deserve destruction, why do you even consider sparing their lives. All they have ever done is terrorise your people. Why spare them now?" Jonah replied with a rather disappointed look. "Just do as I have commanded, that will be all" He made a gesture for Jonah to leave his office.
 Jonah got out and was so furious " these stupid Ninevites, they deserve nothing but destruction for all the oppression my people have suffered. I am not going there, maybe if I head out to another town and preach the good news it would be better after all I'm still doing my masters work." He said to himself as he headed out to the opposite direction of Nineveh. He  quickly boarded a ship and quietly went into the cabin where he slept rather peacefully, this new direction felt so good that he slept so soundly and snored his way through as the ship sailed through a terrible storm.
  The storm persisted and it was to their destruction, all men on board became so frightened, this kind of storm could only be sent from a god. So they  decided to cast lots to know whose god was punishing them, since they were all of different believes. One of the men went down to the cabin and woke Jonah " how can you be sleeping through this storm? Go out and join the rest to cast lots on the god causing this horrifying storm" he said to Jonah.
 Jonah knew what the cause of this storm was, He knew God was chasing after him because of his disobedience. He got out and the lot fell on him, all the men spoke out to him to ask his God to stop the storm and settle whatever he had done to offend him. Jonah was so resistant in accepting God's will that he decided they threw him into the sea so he drowns, for his death was better than Nineveh's access to redemption. The men said a prayer and as they threw him overboard and immediately the storm stopped, they were astonished by the event that they made vows and offered sacrifices to God.
      In Jonahs little head, his death would help him escape  God's plans. As he dropped deep into the ocean he ended up being swallowed by a big fish. "Eww!"As Jonah walked through the intestine of the fish he was disgusted, he began to wonder why he was still alive and  lying in the most irritating and discomforting place ever. He was surrounded by all the digested food particles that the fish had eaten, the smell was upsetting, he was sick to his stomach.
   One  hour later, it began to seem like months had passed, if this was it then he rather stay here than go to Nineveh. A day passed and he began to loose his mind, he started to pray and call out God, he cried so much, how he hated being here, the smell, the dead animals the fish kept eating, the lack of fresh air. Maybe going to Nineveh wouldn't be entirely as terrible as this.
He started to cry even more and he broke and finally accepted salvation was of the lord and on the third day God caused the fish to spit him out.
He came out washed himself and went straight to Nineveh where he preached and they all repented.

        The book of Jonah has three key things we should focus on; firstly, like Jonah who was sent to a sin decayed town to preach repentance even when they didn't deserve God's mercy, Jesus came to a world full of sin, completely unremorseful of all the wrongs done, to bring  salvation and spare us from destruction, rather than the belly of a fish he stay in the grave for three days and resurrected on the third day which brought to our salvation like the Ninevites.
 Secondly, like Jonah we all like to put on that "holier than thou" act and  judge people's wrong  way of  life, rebuking them and thinking they do not deserve God's mercy, we forget that salvation is of the lord and we all have sinned but God is merciful and is always ready to take anyone back no matter how far he must have fallen.
 Finally, our rebellion over Gods plans will never change his plans. No matter how far we run away, we can't escape the omnipresent God. He will put his child right where  He can best be glorified even if it is in the least comfortable or the most terrifying place, We have to learn from Jonah’s errors and choose to be submissive, seeing things the Lord’s way and be willing participants in His plan. We will probably still ache in the discomfort of where God has us, but we can cling to our confidence that His plan is good and trust Him to see us through despite the pain.
God was not surprised by Jonah’s rebellion. Instead he put all of these problems together to point Nineveh, the sailors, readers, and Jonah himself to the truth that nothing is ever outside of God’s plan.

"For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels— everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. "
Colossians 1: 14 MSG