Collateral Damage
After lunch, the owner of the cafe warned us, "You must download this app that tells you about the potholes." I thought she was well-meaning but over-protective. I was a good driver, and I'd driven in South Africa before. Minutes later, I wrenched the steering wheel to the left and slammed on the brakes to avoid driving my car down into a "pothole" that would have swallowed our entire car. Looking back on it, I think about the caring pastors, standing at a funeral, trying to comfort a family that had lost someone to a traffic accident. As their family cried out in grief, it would be tempting to blame God.
Jonah's body gives us a window into his soul. He's in the lowest part of the ship, depicting his determination to avoid God. He's in a deep sleep; that is, he's totally unaware of God. Perhaps before he slept, Jonah thought to himself, "No one knows where I am. I've avoided God." The book of Jonah starts with God awake, in motion: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah." God's action was met with Jonah's counter-action; he runs away. Yet God does not stop: "The Lord threw a great wind onto the sea." The sailors are alert and active. In Christopher Nolan's movie The Odyssey, the sea god Poseidon takes revenge on the hapless sailors. On an IMAX screen, you see forty-foot high waves crash into their relatively puny wooden boats. In the book of Jonah, God throws a wind, and the sailors throw cargo. Instead of trying to hoard wealth, they give up their profits to save each other's lives. Without knowing it, they're imitating God. With all their seafaring experience, they sense this isn't an ordinary storm, but sent by a greater power. So they pray as best they can. When I talked to my family about the potholes, they didn't blame God, but corruption. The state budgeted money to repair them, but at every step along the way, someone diverted the money into their private bank accounts. By the time it came to make repairs, there was nothing left. But what happened in secret is easy to see. The car-sized potholes show you the scale of the theft. The prophet Jonah knew God and was afraid of Nineveh. He ran away. The pagan sailors don't know God and are afraid of the waves, but they ask the gods for help. God sent Jonah and he didn't go. God didn't send the captain but the captain tells Jonah to do what God had already commanded: Get up! Call out! Jonah has made every effort to get away from God. But God is going to even greater lengths to wake him up.
What does it tell us about God that he creates such a dangerous storm to awaken Jonah?
When have you seen people far from God act more like God than you had expected?
What's one time you saw one of your 'private' sins hurt someone else?
What's the one place in your life you've been "asleep" to what God is asking you to do? Before the day ends, ask God for the strength to take action.