Go your own way

I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Jonah 2:9 & 10

It’s not always easy to obey God.
It’s much easier than disobeying Him though!

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn that city that they were heading for disaster unless they altered their ways. Jonah figured that the Ninevites would not exactly give him the keys to the city for such a hard word!

So Jonah had a better idea, he would go in the opposite direction, even if that meant taking a ship, because to the west was the sea! Have you ever noticed that our good ideas are usually in opposition to God’s? What was Jonah’s motivation for disobeying God? Fear of man. I’m sure that if he had read in the Nineveh Herald that the mayor was offering a well paid position in the administration for a prophet of God, he would have taken a fast camel east! Jonah wasn’t that dumb however. He was street wise, he knew that a wicked bunch like the Ninevites would probably lynch him, or at best dump him in a really gloomy damp smelly jail!

Actually, talking about a damp smelly dark dungeon….

It turned out that God cared too much for the people of Nineveh to let Jonah retire to a villa in Tarsish! God sent a storm his way. Now we have no guarantee that life will be storm free, but I can guarantee that if we refuse to abide in the will of God for our lives, we will encounter more than our share of storms.

If you want to know the best way out of a storm in your life, ask Jonah. Say what you like about Jonah, but he was a quick learner. (Or was it a case of necessity is the mother of invention, as the boat was about to go down with all hands?) Whatever, he quickly realised that he was the cause of this, and consequently the solution. His bottle deserted him when it came to jumping ship however, so he asked the crew to chuck him overboard. This is getting worse! Nineveh seems like a good option now!

Look, whatever your situation, God will provide a way out as long as you want out! Just be prepared for the unusual. A giant fish is probably not Jonah’s first choice of lifeboat, but it did the job!

Back to that damp dark smelly dungeon… look on the bright side, he’s not dead – yet. Well when all else has failed, what’s the worse that can happen? You die and go to heaven? Well not yet, you see there’s that Nineveh thing. “Ok God I give up! I will praise you in spite of my situation, and I repent of my disobedience”!

Well it’s about time Jonah! Hey fish. Spew that pain in the gut out, and while you’re at it, point to the east!

God got His way in the end, and because of Jonah’s citywide crusades, there was a revival in Nineveh.
But it could have been easier on Jonah!
Option 1. Say yes Lord, book a seat on a camel east to Nineveh, and preach to whoever will listen. Leave the rest to God.
Option 2. Run away. Take a ship instead of a camel, and go west to Tarsish instead of east to Nineveh. Your choice. Only pretty soon you run out of choices. Now it’s between going down with the ship or going overboard. Some choice!

When we are disobedient and choose to live our lives outside of the will of God, we start to find our choices becoming increasingly less attractive. We find the destination we set for ourselves unattainable. Plans and dreams fall apart. Health fails, circumstances are unfortunate, situations are gloomy, money is wasted, (I reckon a camel fare to Nineveh was cheaper that a cruise to Tarsish, even if it did seem less comfortable)

If your life has turned out like that, if you find your choices running out, you still have one choice left you can make. You can choose to praise God and repent and obey Him. If you commit your ways to the Lord, He will direct your path and turn your life around. Only be prepared to go to Nineveh! It’s never too late to go to Nineveh.
Hey it’s got to be better than the fishy mess you’ve been in so far right?

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5&6.