I love it when God deeply teaches my own heart as I teach students here at Indigenous Bible College (IBC), the small school where my family and I serve. This is exactly what God did through a biblical text I was leading freshmen Bible interpretation students through awhile back in class. It should come as no surprise at this point in my life and ministry that the most familiar passages of Scripture are often those which the Holy Spirit chooses to impact my heart with the most.

The Scripture was this:

"He prayed to the LORD, 'Please, LORD, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster." (Jonah 4:2).

This is the prophet Jonah's famous response to God choosing to mercifully withhold the devastation that He had threatened to send on the Ninevites' because of their collective sin as a city. What spoke to my heart the most from this portion of Jonah’s biographical narrative was what Jonah did know about God and how this knowledge, rather than his ignorance, drove his selfish actions. You see, it wasn't Jonah's lack of knowing who God was and what He was known for that influenced his long-distance sprint away from God's desired destination–Nineveh. Rather, it was actually Jonah's familiarity and clear understanding of the LORD's identity and reputation that influenced his willful disobedience. Jonah chose to use the knowledge of God's compassionate heart as the reason to leave God's hand-picked purpose for him because it was uncomfortable and unreasonable to his thinking. God was offering national restoration instead of immediate decimation to one of Israel’s arch enemies and imperial threats–the Assyrians. Jonah settled for leaving God's best, instead of choosing to lean into who he knew God to be as the graciously loving Father He was. God’s best was just too bizarre for Jonah, or so it seemed.     

My situation was this:

Over the last couple of years I have been honored to step into a new role here at IBC, as the Academic Dean. It has been a huge privilege and responsibility that has often felt too big for me, to say the least. What resonated with me so much through Jonah's situation was how I, like Jonah, have the choice to run to or away from God, knowing that whatever He calls me to will always be what is the very best for me. Ironically, however, sometimes it hits harder when I realize that what God calls me to will be good and gracious for me, but it also means it will always be impossible to accomplish without His intervention. It is His call on my life and not my own. This is some of the awkward terror I sometimes feel in this new ministry–a perfect fit in some ways and yet totally out of my league in so many others. Leaning into who our God is and what He so faithfully does for us should inspire a deep trust in Him for all He calls us to in life. As a result of our faith leaning into God alone, the temptation to leave behind His desires for our lives are now replaced with a true desire to stay close to Him and to experience the illogical and impossible through Him! 

Though the way God calls us today may be different in application, it most definitely is the same in principle. God is also speaking to His Church, whether loud and clear or soft and subtle. He speaks to us through His creation (Romans 1:20), His living Word, Jesus (John 1:14), His written Word, the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and often He directly speaks His truth to us through His Spirit (John 16:13-15). As in Jonah's case, God is always calling us but are we always listening to Him and running to Him? If only Jonah would have run straight to the One he knew, in all His gracious love, even when that love seemed scandalous, unfair and even unsafe; simply to know God could be trusted for who He was and what He was known to do. What a different ending to his story that could have been. Something to ponder.

Key Take-Away:

God’s kids should run to His calling and run away from their own comforts because the grace of the One who calls them is best.