The Jonah in Us

The Bible says that Elijah was a man like us.

Do you realize that Jonah also was a man like us? Allow me to contextualize him. Imagine being in these situations.

You have finally decided to settle down with the love of your life after a number of years in a relationship. The engagement went on very well and all that is remaining is the wedding of your dreams. 

You therefore approach your best friend to walk you through that home stretch.

Before you know it, he marries your fiancé in a secret wedding and she does not even remove your engagement ring.

In a daze, you seek to understand what has happened. Then you get to know that that was the nature of your friend, leaving bleeding hearts wherever he passes. 

Then God sends you to give him a message that he has a week to change or he will come under judgment. Will you go or wait for the ultimatum to expire?

You have a vibrant business. There is this brother (or sister) who has seemingly tried everything without success.

Since you really gel in fellowship, you decide to co-opt him in your business. At the back of your mind you want him to learn the ropes of business so that you can fund him into opening his in a way that it won’t fail as had been happening. 

He therefore gets into the nerve centre of your business because you trust him. 

Before you realize it, he has changed the business to become his and kicked you out. You have to beg to start from scratch again because he has taken everything you slaved to build. 

After some time, you get to a leak of some error in his books with a capacity of completely destroying him and the company. What will you do?

Or you were sitting your final exams in college and the guy next to you copied your answers. When questioned, he was somehow able to convince the lecturer that you were the one who copied though even that lecturer knew the truth. You were referred, making you miss the graduation as well as a whole year of your life. 

Then God sends you to them with a message, repent or …. Will you go?

Imagine you have been married for decades with mature children. Your marriage is the model for all since you seem to gel effortlessly. You have no complaint concerning your marriage and therefore are not putting any front to impress anybody. You know God has granted you a perfect marriage.

Then you come from work one day and discover that some photos are missing from the wall. You assume the house girl has removed to clean them. 

Then you see your husband’s corner where he keeps his stuff like books is empty and are puzzled.

You then go to the bedroom and discover that all your husband’s clothes are missing. 

You now feel like you could eat the house girl alive. How could she allow somebody to steal your husband’s stuff? You must call him to inform him about the theft of his things. But in your confusion you do not remember where you left the phone.

You get back to the living room and just as you see your phone, you also see a letter.

Your husband is saying that he has decided to leave the marriage as it had become a prison to him. He is not coming back as he has got somebody that has freed him from the prison. 

He says you do not look for him. Just move on as he has.

And who has captured his heart? The house girl!

Maybe you are the man in such a marriage.

Before you leave work in the evening your boss calls you and informs you that you have been transferred to a distant town immediately. Due to that, you are not expected in the office since you have one week to report to your new station. All your dues have been worked out leaving you with a free week to move.

Since you love new things, you are excited but anxious about your wife since you know she must get a transfer first and the logistics will be tenuous. 

That is what you are thinking when you get to your house. You then open it and find it as clean as an empty stadium. You think it is the wrong house and go out to get into the right one. Then you find it is actually your house that is empty. 

You move to the bedroom and find that your clothes are all over the floor as anything movable has been removed from the house. 

You decide to call your wife to ask whether she knows that things have been stolen from your house. 

She laughs and tells you that she has left with her severance package and please do not ever look for her. 

As you are preparing to move to your new station, you find out that your wife moved with the boss that gave you the transfer.

Ten years down the line you hear they have a major crisis that only you can resolve. What will you do?

These are things that happen around us all the time.

We love theoretical theology just like we love bashing those spiritual failures we see in the Bible. 

I just hope we look at them like we would like to be looked at. I hope we have some grace as we examine some of those stories for our instruction. And it is because the stories are just like our stories.

I fact many of us are worse that Jonah. How many times do you hear believers saying ‘return to sender’ in prayer? How many are experts in binding and loosing and releasing? How many are so vengeful on enemies when they are praying? How many are claiming and reclaiming and at whose expense?

Aren’t we going farther than Nineveh?

You see, Jonah wanted God to judge Nineveh for their sins because they were the enemy. They deserved it. He just didn’t want grace to be extended to them. But he was not praying judgment to them. He just wanted them to get what they deserved.

But it is important that we get the central teaching in this book. And it is that Jonah was an Old Testament character God privileged to experience New Testament realities.

You see, Jonah was in tune with God’s revelation to Israel during his time. Ever read these verses?

Yahweh, don't I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. (Psalm 139: 21, 22) 

Enemies were to be hated 

God was therefore releasing a new paradigm. The other character who was introduced to the same reality is Hosea. 

Compare those verses with what Jesus said. 

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (Matthew 5:44) 

Isn’t this what God was introducing to His servant Jonah? No wonder He was so patient with him. 

Will we apply God’s message of love to Jonah to help us excitedly live out the New Testament realities? Will we love those we do not like? Will we love like Christ loved?

Otherwise Jonah will continue being a textbook topic with no didactic value to us.

Jonah changed because we couldn’t otherwise have been reading his story. Sadly, he left many of us where he started at as concerns enemies, some of who are conceived in our minds.

Imagine we can even hate our fellow believers! And that because we differ in the way we interpret a portion of scripture!

 I have said elsewhere that I was kicked out of leadership because I sought to privately correct a false teacher. At another time I was declared backslidden because I had obeyed God and went to minister to a ‘sinning’ church that I had really battled with God to go. My ministry support was withdrawn without notice and my family left ‘hanging’ in the great city because we disagreed on the modalities of doing ministry that I had been called to start and which was already having a great impact with the ministry later being killed.

There is a Jonah in each of us. What we need to decide is which of them we will be. 

We can be the former Jonah who ran away from the commission because he could not bear to see grace being poured on the enemy or the one who received the New Testament reality that God loves even our enemies and is therefore not bound by our bias from reaching out to them. 

Will we bless those who curse us like Christ commanded?