Running From Your Calling

When Moses was in Egypt, he ran away to the land of Midian to avoid being charged with murder in Pharaoh’s court. He had a calling on his life to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but he went the other way. Moses spent forty years in the land of Midian, when his calling was in Egypt. God had to put the exodus on hold, while He waited for Moses to be ready to fulfill his calling.
When God told Jonah to go warn Ninevah, Jonah caught a ship headed to Tarshish. Tarshish was about as far from Ninevah as there was in the known world at the time. God arranged for a whale to swallow Jonah, to bring Jonah to the understanding that he needed to fulfill his calling, and, eventually, Jonah went to Ninevah. God waited until after Jonah had preached to Ninevah before pronouncing His final judgment. In fact, God spared Ninevah because the people repented at Jonah’s preaching.
There is a story, I don’t know for sure if it is true, but the story is that a Christian man was in a restaurant, and felt it laid upon his heart to share about a hope in Christ with the waiter. He understandably (I say understandably—some of you may not understand, and that’s actually a good thing if you don’t. I won’t pretend that I don’t understand) felt awkward about doing it, so each time the waiter came by his table, he made an excuse to himself. Each time, God dealt with him a little stronger. Finally he couldn’t stand it any more, and he promised God that the next time the waiter came by, he would talk to him. The waiter didn’t come by for a very long time. The man finished his meal, and was waiting for the check. And waiting, and waiting. Finally the manager came by, asked if he enjoyed his meal, asked if he wanted anything else, and gave him his check. “Wait,” he asked, “what happened to the waiter?” The manager gave him an awkward look, and then, lowering his voice, said, “I don’t quite now how to tell you this, but, about fifteen minutes ago, he went out into the alley and, well, he took his own life.”
Moses ran from his calling, but God didn’t take his calling from him, He just delayed it for a time. Jonah ran from his calling, but God gave him another chance. Sometimes I think God gets tired of people running away, though. Just because God chose to use Moses and Jonah in spite of themselves, doesn’t mean that He promises to be so patient with any of us. Did you know that you can run from your calling without taking a single step? You can hide from your calling in your routine, or in your attitude. Your calling isn’t necessarily to go be missionary in some dark jungle somewhere; it’s more likely to be just to share with people that you work with or go to school with that don’t know Jesus. It may very well be that the biggest difference between what you’re doing now and what you should be doing is just the words that come out of your mouth. The Bible says that from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If you truly love God, that’s going to be in your conversation, not just your words, but the way that you live your life. People should be able to see in you a heart for ministry, even before you open your mouth, but when you open your mouth, it should confirm what they already observed. Not fulfilling your calling, though, can have dire consequences, not just for you, but for those around you, also.

What Happened to Jonah?

There are several points that I would like to cover with regard to Jonah and the whale. First off, was Jonah swallowed by a whale? Some people say that he was not; it’s impossible, the way a whale’s digestive tract is set up, no whale can swallow anything as large as a man. Even if it could, no man could survive being in the stomach of a whale for three days, the digestive fluids would cause him to die a slow and painful death (although not three days worth of slow). Of course, God does the impossible; in fact, the Bible tells us that God prepared the whale for Jonah, so this wasn’t an ordinary whale.
Secondly, was it a whale that swallowed Jonah? The book of Jonah actually says it was a great fish. Biologists tell us that whales are not fish, because they are mammals. Of course, biologists also tell us that tomatoes are not vegetables, because they have seeds, making them, technically, fruits. They aren’t particularly fruit-like, though, so most of us just refer to them as vegetables, anyway (The US Supreme Court has actually ruled that tomatoes are vegetables, so that they can be taxed as vegetables—there is no import tax on fruits). My point is that, in simpler times, people just referred to anything that swam in the sea as a fish, whether it had gills or a blowhole. So, yes, the book of Jonah says it was a great fish, in the Gospels, Jesus says it was a whale. There is no contradiction there.
Thirdly, did Jonah actually survive the ordeal, or did he die and get resurrected? There are a couple of indications that he might actually have died: One, he said himself that he was in Hell, and two, Jesus makes reference to the story of Jonah as the archetype of His own resurrection. Now, was Jonah speaking literally or figuratively? In context, there’s not really any way to tell, that I can see, although it certainly highlights another Messianic prophecy, when David said, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell.” Now, in the reference in the Gospels, Jesus said that there would be no sign given unto “this generation” but the sign of the prophet Jonah, that “as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” To be honest, that doesn’t sound to me like Jesus is suggesting that Jonah died and resurrected, more that He is comparing His own entombment with Jonah’s unusual mode of travel. In fact, it further seems to me that, God put Jonah in the belly of the whale to keep Jonah from drowning, and to give him a chance to consider his own actions. It seems to me that, when Jonah was first swallowed, he figured his time was up. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. It’s possible that, when he said he was in Hell, he was still alive and didn’t realize that he was still alive. After a few days, realizing that he not only wasn’t dead, but, that, against all probability, he wasn’t even dying, he came to an understanding that God wasn’t going to let him off that easy. I don’t believe that Jonah died in the belly of the whale, I think God kept Jonah alive specifically because He wasn’t through with him. I am honest enough to admit that my reluctance to accept the idea that Jonah died and was resurrected may be a result of my own feeling that once one is dead, then one is dead, and there is nothing more that can be done. I feel a certain finality with death, which isn’t necessarily true when God is involved. I can’t help but think that, if God was willing to let Jonah die, and then resurrect him, then the whale was a huge waste of time and energy: Let Jonah drown, explain to him face to face exactly what he needs to do, resurrect his body on (or near) shore, and turn him loose. And if Jonah tries to run to Tarshish again, then drown him again (I don’t really think that would be necessary—a face-to-face with God should straighten anybody out, even more effectively than being in a whale’s belly).