“God of all goodness, give us generous hearts to welcome
your word and receive your Spirit so we can know your will in the midst of our
anxieties and frustrations. May we rejoice in the fruit you bring from our
efforts to hear your Word and follow your Spirit. Give us today the bread of
faith.”
Having cleared up Jonah’s “hesitancy” to do what he was told to do, the
Lord takes it once more from the start.
After a futile attempt to run away, having been rescued by God from the
belly of the whale, Jonah hears the Lord say again, “Go preach repentance in
Nineveh!” And off he goes.
We are told that it should have taken three days just to cover the
territory, so big was Nineveh. But after
a single day of work on Jonah’s part, the entire city (an “enormously large
city”) repents in sackcloth and ashes!
Effective preaching? No, the
extraordinary conversion of this great mass of people has nothing to do with
zeal on the part of Jonah. The Lord
wants this city to be converted and the Lord brings it about, even through a
reluctant mouthpiece. It’s the power of
the message, and not the messenger that brings about success.
For all of Jonah’s reluctance, in the end he does exactly what he is
told: he preaches God’s message (not his
own). Though we might have preferred a
more willing spirit, Jonah provides all that is necessary for a successful
mission in God’s sight: he does what God
asks.
Perhaps the most important question we can ask at the start of each day
is: Lord, what do you want? What do you want me to say, to do—today? Without that kind of radical questioning, our
best intentions are doomed to fail. In
case we doubt, Jonah’s tale reminds us that God has some very definite wants
and desires!
No comments:
Post a Comment