Before the whole fishy incident, God gave Jonah this command: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me.”
Obviously, Jonah did not like this command, and he attempted to flee from the presence of the Lord. (Mistake #1.)
You’ve probably read how that turned out. Jonah ended in a pile of whale vomit with PTSD and seaweed wrapped around his head.
God said, in essence, “Jonah, let’s try this again.”
He gave the command again, with slightly different detail: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
I hope you caught the subtle difference because I have never noticed it until recently when my husband was preaching through Jonah.
In God’s first command, He mentions the Ninevites’ evil. He doesn’t give specifics. He probably didn’t have to. Jonah, and everyone else, knew what the Assyrians were like. Perhaps that was part of the reason Jonah bolted.
However, in God’s second command, the focus at the end of the action point is only on God’s Word. God’s message is more important than the wickedness of the Ninevites.
God had mercy on Jonah, and even this tiny shift in His command shows His care for the errant prophet. The evil might have overloaded Jonah’s mental and emotional circuits, but the Word of the Lord soothed them.
The evil didn’t change. The offense against God didn’t change. The actual message didn’t change. However, God commanded Jonah to shift his focus.
Don’t focus on their evil, Jonah. Focus on My message.
As a Christian, it is so easy to see the evil of the world, the evil in the church, and the evil in my own heart. Sin sinks us. It brings out the worst in us. Pride. Hypocrisy. Envy. Hate. And it is right and true to know that sin deserves God’s wrath and judgment.
However, I think in the story of Jonah that God says to us, “Let’s try this again.”
What if we shifted our focus to the Word of God?
The writer to the Hebrews exhorted the church to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…”
Perhaps, like me, you’ve been sucked into a social media battle about some moral question or social issue. Perhaps you’ve been in a heated conversation with a loved one at the dinner table. Perhaps you’ve shaken your head at the evening news and condemned the rest of the world as going to hell in a handbasket.
Are you focused on the evil? Or are you focused on God’s message?
He condemns evil. He judges it. He calls us to repentance.
Then, He has mercy and forgives all who come to Him. He offers steadfast love- to wicked Assyrians and fishbait prophets.
Next time you’re tempted to enter the fray, think about Jonah. Think about Jesus. Take a deep breath and try this again.
*This article appeared in the November 27th edition of the Devils Lake Journal.
Sarah Dixon Young 