Lessons from Jonah

At the recommendation of a dear friend, I recently read the book Jonah. There are some great lessons in this short biblical story. I decided to organize the lessons learned by the main players in the story.

The fish: Heavenly Father can and will intervene in our lives in major ways. I personally think that he does this on a very limited basis, but I could be wrong. The whale reminds us of Heavenly Father's power and mercy. Power? Well that's self-explanatory. Mercy? Yes! Jonah could have drowned; or Heavenly Father could have chosen any number of other interventions. Now, in our lives our fish will come in many different forms. Perhaps we should note that in this story, the fish is a direct result of Jonah's disobedience. Some of our "trials" have nothing to do with our faithfulness; they are consequences of others' actions or the combined results of thousands of people making certain decisions. There will be times, however, when our predicament is brought upon us by our wickedness. It is interesting, though, that regardless of how we've reached our current position, the prescription is always the same: humility and repentance. What would Heavenly Father have me do in this moment?

The other sailors: These men were believers. They did not worship the same God as Jonah, but they had a firm belief that a God (some God) was causing this storm. And they were anxious to find out what this God wanted in order to make the storm stop. Now, they were in a desperate situation; they feared for their lives. Nevertheless, they turned to God. How many times do we turn to God first when we are faced with tough times?

The people of Nineveh: Here we learn a wonderful lesson of humility and repentance. These people spent weeks in sack-cloth and ashes to show that they changed. Again, they feared death; but they did believe when preached the word.

The bean plant and the worm: I think there is a lot to learn here. All of a sudden, Jonah wakes up to find a bean plant has sprung up overnight to give him shade. Then, a worm eats the bean plant and Jonah wishes he could die. He is chastised for caring more about a bean plant than the thousands in Nineveh. Something else: the bean plant provided nourishment to the worm. Often, what is taken from us will bless others.

Jonah: We don't learn a whole lot about this prophet. How long was he a prophet? What had he done previous to this? What did he do afterward? Many questions about him remain unanswered. He comes onto the scene, receives an assignment, runs from it, is chastised, reluctantly fulfills his responsibility (the letter of the law), still complains, and then the story ends (I'd like to think the people of Nineveh took him in, and he lived happily amongst them the remainder of his days). The greatest lesson I take from his interaction with God is that God will support us in our assignments; but he will still expect us to fulfill our duty. After Jonah was spit out upon the land God did not say, "There, you learned your lesson, now go your way." Instead, he repeated his same instruction. I admit that I wish many of my assignments would just go away. At times, I am willing to accept punishment for laziness, as long as the assignment will just quietly go away. This is not how it works. As I type this, I realize I have a lot of repenting to do as a hometeacher. And this assignments will not go away.

I am sure there is a lot more to learn from this story. What lessons can you contribute?