Too Far from God Part 1: Jonah - the rebel

Too far from God’s plan?

A series following men and women from the bible who found themselves a little far from God.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at a couple of guys from the bible that may have seemed to be “Too far from God”. See if you can find yourself in these guys, I have found it is often not too hard.

Jonah – the rebel

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Jonah Ch1

One of the most common wishes people have when struggling to figure out God’s plan for them is this: “Why can’t He just come down to me for five minutes and tell me exactly what it is He wants for me?”. At various stages in my life I have just wished I could step up to God’s throne and hear some audible answers about where He wants me to be. Do you want me to study in Durban or Cape Town? Where do you want me to apply for a job? Who should I marry?
But take a look at Jonah – this guy heard God tell him what His plans were for his life. He literally knew exactly where God wanted him next and why. Wow! Imagine for a moment that was you – imagine you are sitting on your bed praying about what job you should take and God says “Take the job at Roberts and Sons, I have a plan for you in that business.” Boom! Prayer answered, easy as pie. You’d go for it, right? Or would you? Check out Jonah’s response to God’s straightforward command: He rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He deliberately went in the other direction. (literally if you look at a map). Nineveh was about 700km east of his hometown, Gath Heper, and Tarshish is believed to be the town of Tartessus in Southern Spain, over 3000km west of Joppa.
Jonah you idiot! (you may say) Who hears a specific word from God and says “Not for me, I’m heading west instead”? We see a bit of Jonah’s reason for doing so in Chapter 4 after Nineveh repented and God decided not to destroy it. Jonah did not want Nineveh to be saved! The issue of why he did not want this is speculation, it seems to me that Jonah had a religious heart and felt that he deserved (and had perhaps, in his mind, ‘earned’) God’s grace and compassion; whereas the wicked people in Nineveh did not. (This is similar to the attitude of the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15v25-30).

I guess we can have two responses to Jonah’s actions. The first is to brush it aside, secure in the knowledge that you would never do that. “If God spoke to me and told me specifically what to do, I would totally go for it!” Of course, the Bible is God speaking to us specifically, so in order to have this response you would need to have followed everything God has told you to do in the Bible. Impossible. The second response may be a place of repentance and despair. You know that God called you to a certain destiny and future; and you remember a time when you knew what you had to do to get there. You felt that burn in your heart, and knew God had called you to that purpose. This may have been a certain job or ministry. It may be less obvious than that – like how God called you to purity, and you ran west instead and messed up sexually. Or how he called you to integrity and you ran west and lied on your tax return. Or how he calls us to love our enemies and you ran west by not bothering; choosing to spend time with your friends and ‘grow in love’ with them alone.

If that is the place you are at; if that hits some deep heart issues there; I have some awesome news for you. You are never too far from God’s plan. Jonah deliberately turned his back on God’s specific plan for him. Did God turn his back on him? Absolutely not. No. Negative. He went after him and pulled him back on track. (sometimes he has to use a large fish in our lives to do this too). Let me explain why God does this. He explains it very clearly for us in 2 Timothy 2 verse 13:

“If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”

God’s personality and character is such that, no matter what we do to run away from Him, He HAS to pursue us and ensure that His promises to us are fulfilled. He cannot disown himself – what an awesome fact. I’ve heard it put in this way by a pastor: “God’s grip on us is way bigger than our grip on Him”.

The excuse that we cannot continue in God’s plan because we have drifted too far from Him is null and void with this truth in our artillery. Sure, the devil will be chatting to you now, convincing you that your circumstance is different; that your particular form of ‘running west’ was too much and too far for God to bring you back. This is rubbish. Follow Jesus example and combat these temptations and thoughts with scripture. Phillipians 1 v 6 is a good place to start:

“And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus”.