In Spite Of

There can be a lot of pressure to be perfect.  To have a put together life or do well at jobs, relationships, ministries, etc.  I’ve been contemplating recently how God works in spite of us.  There’s really nothing we can do without Him.  There are many times I’ve felt that God has done something in spite of me and that my own strength could never be enough.  I try to do things on my own, but know that it ultimately is useless.  Maybe it’s in a relationship, job or ministry that I am frustrated with and have trouble mentally carrying out, but He uses it.  Or maybe I am stubborn and try to do my own thing but He gently works in the situation in spite of me.

I recently read Jonah.  Jonah is a classic Bible story that I heard repeatedly growing up with multiple flannel graph versions of it.  I used to think this story was just about a man, a whale, and a city.  It’s far more than that and an encouragement on how God works in spite of us.

This story is set in Nineveh which is modern day northern Iraq, a little north of Baghdad.  It was known as a great city during this time but also for its wickedness.  Jonah is instructed by God to go to Nineveh and preach against it.  Jonah’s response to this is to flee God.  He doesn’t want to go to that area.  Quite frankly, I wouldn’t either.

In the very first chapter of Jonah we see him fleeing God’s presence and calling.  He hops a ship and tries to go in the opposite direction.  This doesn’t seem like the action we would expect from a prophet in the Bible.

One of the ironies that I love is that he is on a boat with sailors who believed in other gods.  A huge storm comes along and they are fearful for their lives and cry out to their gods with no resolution.  They had to actually ask Jonah to call out to his God.  You would think it would be Jonah preaching to the sailors, but it is not.  The sailors already knew he was running from his God, but now they were seeing the power of his God.  Jonah never does cry out to God to rescue them but tells the sailors that the God he worships made the land and sea.  Rather than crying out to God, Jonah recommends that they throw him over and kill him.  He is essentially telling them to kill him rather than calling on God.

The first chapter ends with the sailors themselves crying out to God, throwing Jonah overboard and turning to God.  God used Jonah fleeing his presence to turn pagan sailors towards him, in spite of Jonah.

Maybe Jonah thought he won, and had escaped God by being thrown overboard.   Maybe God could have let Jonah die and sent someone else, someone more willing.  But that’s not what happened.  God sent a fish to swallow Jonah and to preserve his life.  After three days in the whale Jonah finally cries out to God.  In Jonah 2:7-9 he says:

“When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.

8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

Then God has the fish vomit Jonah up.  Gross.  I really doubt Jonah spent three days in a whale and smelled great.  At this point in the story I picture him as covered in vomit, smelling like the inside of a fish, and having corroded skin.  While there is speculation on if fish or whales currently known to us could swallow a human, there is an understanding that the gastric juices of the fish would change the skin, probably to a ghostly whiteness and wrinkling the skin (way more than just staying in a bathtub for too long).  

So now we have Jonah, back on the same page with God and heading towards Nineveh possibly looking like a wrinkly ghost.

Nineveh was a large city and according to Jonah 3 it took three days to go through Nineveh.  Jonah only spent one day.  The message he preached was, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  It doesn’t say that he told people to repent, just that the city would be overthrown.  It doesn’t appear that Jonah put much effort into giving them God’s message.  In spite of Jonah, the word spread through all of Nineveh and the people repented.  Even the king made a decree to let everyone urgently call on God and that “Who knows?  God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” God ends up hearing their repentance and sparing the city.

But where does that leave Jonah?  He had forty days to preach to Nineveh but only went one day journey into the city.  Jonah became angry with God and in Chapter 4 actually tells God that he would rather die than see the people of Nineveh repent.

“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah keeps telling God it would be better to die than to see these people saved. God used Jonah to save many people and bring them to God but Jonah saw their wickedness as too great to be compassionate for.

In a sense, my humanity understands where Jonah is coming from.  I wouldn’t want to go to Iraq and preach repentance.  But God is compassionate and works in spite of us.

I continue to pray that no matter where I may be in life or what my circumstances are, that God works in spite of me.  I know I don't have to be perfect and can simply follow his calling, whatever that may be in life.  I am ultimately no better than Jonah and need God just as much as the sailors, Nineveh and Jonah.  Thank God that He accomplishes things in spite of me.