What’s Your Assignment?

Even if you weren’t raised in church, you probably knew the story of Jonah and the whale. It makes for a fun children’s story, even if you didn’t understand the significance as a child. But as an adult, what can we learn from Jonah?

Jonah was a prophet in the Old Testament. A prophet, in short, was a chosen person to deliver messages with authority; a spokesperson for God, someone to speak on His behalf. You may hear the terms “major” or “minor” when it comes to prophets, but that doesn’t reference the importance of their work, only the length of their books in the bible. Jonah was a minor prophet, but his message is major.

So, we all know what happened in Nineveh (and if you don’t, you can read if for yourself, in the book of Jonah, pg. 1309…LOL!). But what struck me about Jonah was his disobedience. Here we’re talking about a chosen messenger and he decided he didn’t like the message God had for the Ninevites, so he ran away. He found himself in pretty deep trouble, no pun intended, before he decided to do the right thing, but even then, he wasn’t happy about it.

In our pious, judgmental thinking, we could say, “Shame on Jonah. He was chosen, he should have been more amenable to delivering God’s word to Nineveh.” It’s like us holding our Pastor to a higher standard, when in reality, he is just a man, capable of failure, just like the rest of us. We are all like Jonah; we can relate to him. How many times has God asked us to do something and we whine and complain, throwing out all kinds of excuses why we shouldn’t do it?

If God can trust and use a stubborn man like Jonah to do His will, what makes you think He won’t use you? In the end, Jonah delivers his message and the fate of Nineveh was changed. If you could just do the work of God, think of difference you could make; you may just change the fate of an entire community!