Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Jonah 1:13 (NIV).
Have you ever fought against what you knew was the right thing to do? Maybe it was God telling you, through your conscience, what He wanted you to do. Instead, you resisted it. Lots of resisters live among us, and most of them are resisting doing the right thing even though they know deep inside that they should.
King Solomon knew about that. Perhaps Jonah had heard Solomon’s proverb that “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.” If God has determined that something will happen, it’s going to happen. Speak the world into existence? Gonna happen. End it on a time of His choosing? Gonna happen. Only Son born/only Son crucified; disciples scatter/disciples gather; Great Depression; post-war boom; the day you are born and the day you will die: all of them will happen when and only when God commands it.
Find yourself in a severe Mediterranean storm so bad that the other men onboard want to throw you overboard? Yep, that, too, no matter whether you hop on the first boat to Tarshish or hot-foot it to Ninevah as soon as God stops talking. What God ordains can’t be unordained.
So, we’re just pawns, right? We’re just bit players in a cosmic comedy for the pleasure of this other-worldly God?
As Joe in DC might say, “come on, man!” You surely don’t think so little of God, or yourself, do you? After all, the same God who ordains that anything and everything can and will happen also ordained that part about His only son dying on that cross. He choreographed up all of human history so it would lead to that singular climactic point at Calvary. He did it so that the humans He created as His very good creation could return home to Him and live with Him. For love’s sake. It was to bless us in a way we couldn’t bless ourselves.
Just like He was working to bless Jonah, and maybe even those men on the ship. Just like He’s working right now to bless you.
Come on, man, again. I’m being blessed in a pandemic? When my friends and family have spent a year in anxiety or worse? I’m blessed by living in a world of sickness, war, and violence? That’s God at work?
Actually, He is at work through them. He’s at work to bless me and you DESPITE those terrible things, those fallout consequences of mankind’s sins. Stick around here for a few days and you’ll find out how He blessed Jonah that way.
For further reading: Proverbs 21:30, Jonah 1:14
Lord God, You do bless me in ways I don’t understand. Praise and thanks to You for that.
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Practical Proverbs 