Digging Deeper – You Can’t Outrun the Storm of Disobedience

So, Jonah hops on a boat headed in the opposite direction from where God had instructed him to go. Instead of taking a camel to Nineveh, he purchases a one-way ticket to Tarshish. Honestly, we don’t know for sure where Tarshish was located—many historians believe it was in the western Mediterranean. But we do know he was “moving away from the Lord” (or at least he thought he was). And a powerful storm was brewing.

Let’s pause for a moment here. You know, there’s always that interlude between the disobedient act and the punishment being doled out. Many times, we don’t realize we are in for a hurting—we’re just enjoying sowing our wild oats, as they used to say.

I remember one day as a nine- or ten-year-old kid doing something really stupid. My friend and I found a couple of old gallons of paint lying around his house. We had nothing better to do, so we decided to take the paint with us into the wooded lot next door—an area where we would often ride our bikes and hike. But on this day, we decided to add some color to the landscape. We began to paint the trunks of the trees—orange and blue. We didn’t just do one or two; we did dozens of them!

When his mom came home, she didn’t take kindly to this. And she felt obliged to share this with my mom (tattletale).

When I got home, my mom had some choice words for me. She then said she would discuss it with my dad. When he got home from work, she informed him of my artwork and asked what my punishment should be. He said he would have a talk with me and hand down the sentence. So, my dad came into my room to have a chat. He made sure I understood that what I had done was unacceptable. Then he said, “Your mom wants me to punish you. So, you have to stop smoking for a month.”

While the Lord was ultimately loving and compassionate with Jonah, he wasn’t getting away that easily. He sent a violent storm—one so intense that it seemed as though the ship was going to break apart! And as we’ll discuss tomorrow, he wasn’t just bringing these circumstances on himself—others’ lives were now at risk!

Jonah was about to learn an important lesson: when it comes to obedience, God means business!