Jonah rose up to flee

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.  – Jonah 1.2-3

Imagine, just imagine, if God came to you today and told you that He wanted to leave everything you had a go preach to the Muslims in Iraq. Imagine you were to go to North Korea. Imagine you were sent even to some Muslim population in your country.

I am sure that we would all like to say ‘Amen! Bless God! Let me go! Here am I Lord, send me!’

Well, think about it for a second. That sounds all spiritual and godly and stuff, but seriously, think about it. If you were in that situation and you knew that this mission trip could very well result in your death, could you jump on the next plane. I mean, really, these are the people that carried out 9/11 and have launched terror attacks. They cut off western Christians heads and put it on the internet. I am not sure I would be one of those jumping up and down and saying ‘me, Lord! Me, Lord!’

And that’s where we pick up the story. Jonah was a prophet who God told to ‘go up to Tarshish and tell them how wicked they are!’ These Ninevites were bad people, really, really, really bad people. They were a vicious warrior nation who, when they won a war would make the relatives of the dead leaders carry their rotting bodies around on their backs. They had ‘flesh hooks’ which they inserted in the backs of captives to make sure they would not escape. Their city was massive and all kinds of atrocities took place there.

I have to say it is no wonder to me that Jonah tried to catch the next ship to Spain!

What challenges me is that there are times when it takes nothing like a Ninevah to keep me from sharing my faith. All it takes is fear of rejection, or fear of being laughed at, or fear of not knowing what to say. I don’t have the excuse that Jonah had. May God keep me from Jonah-like fear in a situation is nothing like his. I don’t ever want to ‘flee to Tarshish’ because of perceived fear.