My Jonah Story

Christsfreeservant said:

The Lord Jesus led me to read Psalm 119:105-112 ESV.

Back in the early 1980s, when my children were still quite young, and I was a young mother of four, I had a situation in a church with the leadership misjudging me, and honestly, not being very nice about it, either. The pastor said to me, “Would you say that you have been crucified with Christ?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well I say that you haven’t.”

Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. My heart was broken. It was crushed, in fact. So, what did I do? I ran! I mean, what else could I do? He had sealed my fate, and there was no other way around it, right? I felt I had no other recourse. So, I just played the game “I’m ok.” “You’re ok.” And, then everything was fine. They were happy with me, but I wasn’t happy with me.

Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it,
to keep your righteous rules.​

Then, one day I was reading the story of Jonah to my children, and God spoke so clearly to my heart that that was me, that I was running from God, not for the same reasons Jonah ran, mind you, but still I was running from the situation. So, he told me to get back in there and to fight this thing through.

And, then I said, “But God, you don’t understand!” The thing of it is, I really believed that. I believed God had no power over my situation, but that this pastor did, and that there was nothing I could do to change it. I was doomed!

But, the Lord kept encouraging me to get in there and to fight this thing through, so I went and talked with a good friend of mine, who was also the wife of one of the church elders. I told her my situation, and she told me that I came across too much like I “had it all together.” So, she tried to help me identify where that was coming from. But, I kept saying, “No, that isn’t it.” It wasn’t until she said, “I know what it is. It is a spirit of fear,” that I knew this was it. So, we prayed for God to deliver me, and he did.

I am severely afflicted;
give me life, O Lord, according to your word!
Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord,
and teach me your rules.​

But, what came next was something I would not have ever imagined. I had been severely abused by my dad in my childhood, but I was told I just needed to stuff my pain, basically, i.e. to forget it. I had no one I could talk with about it, so I thought I was doing the right thing by just trying to forget it. But, I wasn’t forgetting it. I was just hiding the hurt deep inside me.

So, when God delivered me from this spirit of fear, all these memories and hurts began to come to the surface, and I began to weep out loud to God. I didn’t know what to do with what I was feeling, and my friend didn’t know either, so she suggested I talk with the pastor. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that”, I said. “He hates me.” So, she talked with him for me, with permission from me, and she told him what my deal was, i.e. about my childhood.

I hold my life in my hand continually,
but I do not forget your law.
The wicked have laid a snare for me,
but I do not stray from your precepts.​

Well, this same pastor who had been so cruel to me now called me on the phone. He told me he was sorry. He told me that, as my pastor, he is supposed to be a spiritual father to me, but that he hadn’t been a very good one, and he asked me to forgive him and to give him a second chance. And, so I did. I did cry, though, when he told me that. I couldn’t hold back the tears. No man had ever said such words to me, that I recalled.

So, I told him about all these memories that were surfacing, and I asked him what to do with them. He told me to cry them out to God, and then to just release them to God and let him have them, rather than to stuff them back inside, so that is what I did, and God began to heal me.

Then, this pastor gave me an assignment within the church to observe another woman in the church teaching a class, and to see what I could learn from her. I submitted to his request, did what he said, and then he and I met a few times to talk about what I was learning, and to see how things were progressing with me and with my healing process.

Just think of it, if I had hung in there with the whole Jonah thing, I would have totally missed out on all that, and so would have this pastor.

Well, to make a long story short, the Lord took me through a long healing process, because there was so much damage done to my heart and emotions and mind, but this pastor was there to help me through the beginning stages of it, anyway, until we moved away from there, and through it all we actually developed a friendship. Weird, huh?

Your testimonies are my heritage forever,
for they are the joy of my heart.
I incline my heart to perform your statutes
forever, to the end.​

Anyway, when we run from things God has allowed in our lives, for his purposes, we miss out on all the blessings he has for us through them, and so do many other people for whom the Lord wants to do marvelous things in their lives, too.

For example, this pastor finally admitted to me that he was threatened by me because when I shared during group Bible study discussion, I spoke with too much authority for a young woman. He told me, at one time, that I should wait until I had gray hairs on my head, and then people would listen to me. But, now he was admitting to me that he had misjudged me; that they, the elders had misjudged me. Now he could truly see my heart.

So, instead of running, we need to see what God wants to do through our circumstances, and believe that he is completely sovereign, and that he does truly understand what we are going through, and that he has a plan.

But, to be perfectly honest, that is not the last time I ran from God. You would think that I would have learned my lesson, and I did for a long while. But, there were other times in my life when the pressures of life got me down, and instead of running to God, I ran from him, again.

Some of those situations had to do with other pastors or church leaders misjudging or mistreating me. There were many of them, in fact, more than one could possibly imagine would happen to just one person. Some of these situations had to do with other people abusing, betraying and/or using me for their advantage. So, God had to heal me of those heartaches, too. I had to learn to trust fully in his sovereignty, and to rest in his promises, to rely fully on his grace to help me in my time of need, and to keep pressing on, in his strength, in being the woman of God he created me to be.

Praise the Lord, I stopped running from God quite a few years ago. Now I run INTO his arms, which is the ONLY place to be ever!

Jesus, I am Resting, Resting
Jean Sophia Pigott

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.

O, how great Thy loving kindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O, how marvelous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Belovèd,
Know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.

Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart;
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings:
Thine is love indeed!

Ever lift Thy face upon me
As I work and wait for Thee;
Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth’s dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father’s glory,
Sunshine of my Father’s face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting,
Fill me with Thy grace.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

Friday, November 17, 2017, 9:45 a.m. – Thank you, Jesus, for how you spoke your words to my heart this morning, and thank you for putting this song in my mind when I awoke. I praise you, and I thank you. Love, Sue

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Christsfreeservant said:

Thank you! All glory to God!

And, Amen to what you said, too. And, yes, as I was writing my story this morning, I could definitely see some parallels to the story of Job, too. So, thanks for pointing that out to me. I know that there may even be readers who may play the role of Job's friends and will try to say that it was my fault that those things happened to me, so I am prepared.

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Christsfreeservant said:

Thank you so much! I appreciate these encouraging words. God bless you!

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Christsfreeservant said:

Amen! Absolutely! I hope my story will help others to do that, too. Thank you.

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It was a profound shock to the people of Judah when the City of Jerusalem fell to the army of the Babylonians in the early years of the 6th century BCE. This city had not been conquered by an invading power since 1000 BCE, when David himself had taken it from the Jebusites to make it the capital of his newly unified country. When Solomon erected the Temple in Jerusalem, the people began to think that this holy city now lived under the protection of its indwelling deity. That idea was shattered with the city's fall in 596. The subsequent relocation of the Jewish people into a Babylonian exile only continued the shock and increased the despair.

The depth and pain of these reactions was located in the firm belief that somehow the Jews were God's chosen and favored people. Yet the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people seemed a strange way for the "chosen people" to be treated by their God. Life has to be endured as it comes, however, and so the Jews lived apart from their holy city and their sacred soil for several generations. Finally, the Persians defeated the Babylonians and allowed the descendants of the exiled Jews to return and resettle their native land. Jewish pilgrims returned in smaller and larger groups over the next two centuries.

The Jews dealt with this trauma in their history by trying to explain why God had allowed the defeat and exile of the chosen people. All of their understanding of God drove them to find some rationality in this experience. This was especially true when a sufficient number had returned to allow them finally to begin to rebuild their country. They wanted to make sure that God's wrath would not descend on them again. They needed to know how they had offended God so that this behavior would never be repeated. Their first explanation was emotionally unsatisfying for it placed blame for unfaithfulness on their own ancestors and dishonored their parents, in direct violation of the Ten Commandments. Then they hit on what seemed a better idea. Alien influences were to blame, they said, "Some of our weaker ancestors had married foreign partners. These Gentile elements then brought corruption to our nation by polluting the true faith and the racial purity of God's people." The way to avoid a future disaster thus seemed clear. They must purge the nation of its non-Jewish elements by banishing them from the land. The half-breed children of these unholy unions must also go. The new land of the Jews must be for Jews only. So the law was decreed and vigilante squads were loosed on the people with instructions to check blood lines to the tenth generation in order to guarantee the racial purity of the newly established Jewish state. The true worship of a pure Jewish people was the only way to secure God's blessing. The Jewish state thus entered a period of internal violence.

It was because of the atmosphere produced by this mentality that an unknown Jewish person, presumably a man since women were not taught to write at this time, went to his home to devise a means of challenging these prevailing attitudes. He could not attack them openly in a public, political way, for that would be interpreted as running the risk of new defeat and a new exile. He had to confront these attitudes obliquely until their destructiveness was made clear. He had to find a way to hold up a mirror and to force the ruling authorities to look directly into it. Taking his quill in hand he decided to write a fanciful story filled with the exaggeration of a world of make believe, but so enchanting that everyone would want to hear it. In the privacy of his home, he did just that. When he had finished, a text of this story appeared suddenly and anonymously in Jerusalem at the height of the ethnic cleansing. The town crier gathered some people around him in a public square and this is the story he read.

Once upon a time there was a prophet in Israel whose name was Jonah. God called to Jonah and told him that he must go to preach to the people of Nineveh. "Nineveh," said Jonah, "you must be kidding. That is an unclean Gentile city. Why would you want me to do something that weird?" God was adamant, however, and God's message was clear, so Jonah had to respond. He did so in the classic way that people do when they are told by an authority figure to do something they really do not want to do, that is, Jonah said "Yes" but he meant "No" since he had no intention of obeying. Jonah, however, went through all the motions. He went to his home, packed a suitcase, went down to the port and booked passage on a boat, but to Tarshish and not to Nineveh. One does not go by sea to Nineveh. If caught, he reasoned, he could claim that he had misunderstood and by this time, God surely would have had second thoughts. All went well as Jonah boarded, unpacked his suitcase in his stateroom, put on his Bermuda shorts, got a good book and positioned himself topside in a deck chair as the ship pulled out into the Mediterranean Sea. The trip was uneventful until a dark cloud in the sky seemed to be shadowing the boat. Aware of this dark presence, the captain tried to escape it by turning the boat both to the right and to the left, but the cloud responded by turning in concert with the boat. While the rest of the sky was clear and blue, this cloud got darker and darker and from within it came flashes of lightning, the roar of thunder and finally rain. So strange was this phenomenon that the captain drew the obvious conclusion, "Someone up there does not like someone down here." In what he regarded as a scientific fashion, he sought to identify the culprit. He drew straws and the lot fell on Jonah. "What is this that you have done, Jonah?" "Well, God did tell me to go preach to the Ninevites, but I knew that God did not really care for the Ninevites, so I booked passage on this boat." The captain, who did not care for Ninevites either, understood and thought he would ride out the storm until a bolt of lightning struck near and a wave from the sea swept over the boat, hurling Jonah's deck chair from one end of the ship to the other. That was when the captain weighed his own security against Jonah's decision and decided that Jonah had to go. So, with the help of three deck hands, Jonah was seized by his limbs and on the count of three they heaved him overboard.


Jonah never hit the sea. God had created a great fish (the word whale never occurs in this story) that had been swimming in tandem with this boat waiting for its moment in the drama. Jonah fell into its open jaws, which closed over him, and Jonah found himself living in the belly of this great fish. Jonah had amazing adaptive qualities, so he settled down to make his new home comfortable by rearranging the furniture and hanging the curtains. For three days and nights, Jonah lived in this new, but somewhat confining, Mediterranean condominium until even the great fish got tired of Jonah (I think he smoked) and so, with a great primeval belch, the fish threw up Jonah, who tumbled head over heels onto a conveniently located sandbar. Jonah was clearing his head and taking in his new situation, when he heard a voice saying, "Jonah how would you like to preach to the people of Nineveh?" "Okay, God," he said, "You win. I'll go."


In one verse Jonah was in Nineveh, but still convinced that God was making a mistake, so he opted for a new form of resistance. In Frank Sinatra fashion, he concluded, "I'll do it, but I'll do it my way! I'll preach to the Ninevites, but I'll do it by muttering under my breath and only on the back streets and alley ways of the city." Around the city he went saying: "God says to repent. Repent and turn to God," hoping no one would hear. To his amazement everyone heard. Crowds gathered from every house and condominium confessing their sins, tearing their clothes in repentance and begging for God's mercy. Jonah was the most successful evangelist in the history of the world. Jerry Falwell would have eaten his heart out for this kind of response.


Jonah, however, was angry. Storming out of town, he said: "I knew this would happen, God. That is why I did not want to come. These wretched people deserve punishment. I know you, God! I know you will forgive! Why does your love not stop at the boundary of my love?"


Jonah found a spot outside the city where he sat and sulked. The sounds of the revival could be heard as "Sweet Hour of Prayer" was being sung by the penitents. God was strangely silent and night fell. When Jonah awoke, a giant plant had grown up near his head. During the day Jonah found protection from the desert sun in its foliage and sanctuary from the biting desert wind in its trunk. That night God created a worm that ate the giant tree, leaving only a small pile of sawdust. When Jonah awoke, he was distraught at the loss of his beloved tree. He wept, mourned and felt the depth of bereavement. Finally, God broke the divine silence and said, "Jonah, how is it that you can have such passionate feelings about this tree and yet no compassion for the 120,000 people of Nineveh, to say nothing of their cattle?"

The Book of Jonah ends there. Imagine that story being read on the streets of Jerusalem while ethnic cleansing was taking place in the city. As the story unfolded, the people roared at the depth of Jonah's bigotry until they realized that Jonah was a fictional portrayal of themselves.

The Book of Jonah remains in the Bible to this day to counter human attempts to say that the love of God is limited to the limits of my love or my religion's ability to love. There are no boundaries on the love of God. That is the message of Jonah. In God there are no distinctions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white, gay and straight, left handed and right handed. God's invitation is "Come unto me, all ye" not "some of ye." We are to come "just as we are, without one plea." How dare Popes or Archbishops of Canterbury or religious institutions anywhere define anyone as beyond the limits of God's embracing love! When any ecclesiastical leader or religious tradition excludes or diminishes any child of God for the sake of "unity" or by defining God's love as limited, the Book of Jonah stands as biblical judgment on that leader and those attitudes.

~~~ John Shelby Spong

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