Avoidance. Procrastination. Reluctance. You wake up, knowing the tasks before you for the day. Do you get to work right away, do you say tomorrow will be a better day or do you avoid the tasks altogether? I am a procrastinator at heart. Mañana is always a better day for me. I’ll do the enjoyable tasks today and put off the less enjoyable.
The prophet Jonah was asked to take God’s word to the Gentiles. Jonah did not procrastinate. He did not get busy doing God’s work. He avoided God’s message. In fact, he fled from God. As far as he could go, he ran from God’s word. He did not like what God was asking him to do.
How many times do we, as Christians, read God’s word or hear a sermon and say, “That’s not for me,” or “That makes me uncomfortable.” And then, you/we stop reading God’s word, or we stop going to church or we stop going to “that” church. In essence, we are fleeing from God. We don’t want to do what God is calling us to do. We don’t want to hear what God is saying. So we flee. Like Jonah in the belly of the fish for 3 days, we wander. We lose hope. We despair.
But God…in His great mercy, great patience, is long-suffering with us. He gave Jonah a second chance to obey His word. He will give us, Christians, a second chance, as well, to obey God’s word. Will we, like Jonah, hear God’s word again and obey?