Are you fleeing from the Lord like Jonah when he by “chance”“…found a ship going to Tarshish…?”In Jonah 1:1-3 it’s amazing how easy it always is to find a ship going in a direction away from the presence of the Lord?
Folks, if you look on a map of the area, you would find that Nineveh is in the northeast where Joppa and Tarshish are in the southwest. A lot of times we give reasons for the actions we take as, “Hey, everything just came together!” “I mean, there I was in Joppa, and bang, a boat was there just at the right time heading to Tarshish.”
•Be careful and ask yourselves, is this thing I’m heading towards drawing me closer to the presence of the Lord or towards something else? The right direction is always obedience and closeness to God!
•“…he paid the fare…”: Make no mistake about it, Jonah paid for his disobedience. The ship may be there waiting, but you still are going to have to pay. Interesting though, Jonah was not a stowaway; I mean, he was honestly disobedient.
•“…went down into it…”: Not only did he go down to Joppa, but here he goes down even further into the boat. Notice it says “with them”; who is them? Well, it’s a bunch of idolaters.
Mark this: Jonah did not want to obey for fear that the Lord would use him with a bunch of sinners that he hated, so where does he go? On a boat with a bunch of sinners that he hates. Isn’t God good? I mean the Lord is already dealing with the very reason Jonah was running from God by having him deal with his prejudices.