Jonah 1:1-16.  Be sure to read the “Intro to Jonah”.  In the first verse we are introduced to Jonah, he is referred to as the son of Amittai, this is the exact same way he is referred to in 2 Kings 14:25.  He was a prophet in that verse to the king of Israel (the northern kingdom).  But God had a new assignment for him, go to Ninevah, a leading city of the Assyrian people.  And, we are left no doubt as to where they were spiritually speaking, they were very very bad.  And God had noticed.

Instead of obeying God Jonah disobeyed and went the opposite direction (so Jonah “sinned”).  Tarshish is a town on the Atlantic coast of Spain, in Jonah’s world that would have been the end of the earth, the opposite end from Ninevah.  Notice twice in verse 3 we are told Jonah was trying to hide from God, an interesting though considering that God had ‘seen” the evil life of the Ninevites.

If you read the “Intro to Jonah” remember that I mentioned “scholars” who had a problem with the Ninevites response to Jonah.  I mentioned that there had been some natural signs that might have influenced them.  Here in verses 4-5 we see the sailors getting very “religious” when the storm is about to sink them.  The fact that they pray to “their gods” tells us that they were not Israelites but they were affected by the storm and looking for “divine” help.  Jonah was doing what lots of depressed people do, sleeping, trying to hide from his life.  Verse 6 shows us even more that in times of trouble people are open to new things, the captain wanted Jonah to pray to his god, because maybe his god was the one making the storm.  They also rolled dice to see who was making all the trouble, and they discovered it was Jonah.  Proverbs 16:33 tells us that God controls the way dice fall but don’t be fooled that doesn’t mean that he will make them fall the way you want.  In this case Jonah was identified as the guy.  The crew quizzed him on who he was, when they found out that his god was the God, Yahweh, they got very upset.  They were shocked that he was trying to run for God.  They then asked him how to calm God down and Jonah told them to throw him overboard.  They rejected the idea and tried to get back to land, but they could not.  In verse 14 we see then change from praying to their gods and they pray to Yahweh.  They asked God not to hold them guilty if they threw Jonah overboard, then they threw him over.  Immediately the storm stopped.  This made them even more afraid of Yahweh and so they offered a sacrifice to him.

The cool thing so far is how God moved these men through this natural disaster closer to him.  They started out praying to their gods and ended up honoring the one true God.  It is also interesting that the guy who ought to have known better tried running from God.  Even the guys with the false gods knew you could not run from Yahweh, they were aware of his power.  I think sometimes we are so close in to God that we fail to see him.  We need to keep our eyes and ears open to what God is doing.  We need to have a clear picture of who God is.  We need to never underestimate him.

God help me stay open with you.  Help me never to try to hide and never to try to run.  How stupid is that?  But we are all stupid sometimes aren’t we?  Help me remember and obey.  I don’t really like the alternative, I don’t want to be tossed over to learn a lesson.  Again help me understand what you want me to do and help me do it.