One at a Time

Wind and Waves

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Southeast Christian Church
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When the wind and waves start becoming overwhelming, we read in Jonah 1:5-6 that, “All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, ‘How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.’”

You can’t dismiss or glaze over what this pagan captain says to Jonah. The captain says, if you call out to God, maybe he will have compassion on us. The sea keeps getting worse, and the sailors start to recognize that there's something supernatural going on here with this storm. Jonah is finally forced to come clean to reveal his identity as a Hebrew and his goal to run from God’s command to travel to Nineveh. Even these pagan sailors recognize all the errors that exist in Jonah’s plan and that this storm has been caused by Jonah’s disobedience. They are so convinced that they begin praying to the real God to not hold them accountable for Jonah’s death as they throw him over. The raging sea grew calm as soon as Jonah is no longer aboard this ship. Isn’t it ironic that these pagan sailors realize how foolish it is to attempt to run away from God that they don’t even believe in, yet Jonah believes his plan will work to escape God who is all-knowing and all-seeing? 

DISCUSSION/REFLECTION QUESTION: When have you interpreted “waves and wind” as God’s abandonment? In hindsight, can you see that God’s grace was present during those events? 

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  • Ellen Carrithers

    Ellen Carrithers

    Not only did Jonah finally do what he was supposed to do but God used non believers to give Jonah the push to see he needed to obey God. These non believers also got to see the true One and only God work. How great thou Art!!!

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The story of Jonah is a powerful tool to help us understand the will of God in our lives. In Jonah 1:1, God tells Jonah to, "go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before Me." The Bible then says Jonah, "got up and went in the opposite direction" because of one word: bitterness. Jonah felt bitterness towards the people God was calling him to love.  One of the things that gets in the way of us loving people one at a time is when we have these unresolved feelings of bitterness, prejudice, or anger. In Ephesians 4 we learn that God calls us to get rid of all anger and bitterness because these things grieve the Holy Spirit. These emotions block us from being able to fulfill God's plan and purpose in our lives because bitterness has the ability to blind us to what God wants to do in and through us. This week's challenge is to focus on what God has done for you rather than what someone has done to you. This is how we can begin the difficult task of uprooting bitterness in our hearts. Every time you start to think about what someone did to you and those feelings of resentment and bitterness arise, stop and instead think about what God has done for you through Jesus. The more we focus on what He's done for us, the more grace and compassion we have for people who've done things to us.

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