Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17
Hide-and-seek is not my favorite game to play. My niece and nephew, however, love it, so I will play whenever they ask me to play. My favorite role in hide-and-seek is to be the one who finds the hiders. When my niece and nephew were very young, their hiding spots were very obvious. I spotted them almost immediately. It was almost as if they believed I could not see them if they could not see me. They did not realize how futile their hiding was. As adults, we may not play hide-and-seek like we did as kids, but we do our own hiding. Sometimes we hide or run from the difficult tasks God calls us to do. Our hiding and running from these things are just as futile as a two-year-old trying to hide. God sees us ever more clearly than I found my young niece and nephew hiding in their obvious hiding spots. The truth is, we cannot hide from God. We cannot outrun Him, either. That, my friend, is a good thing.
Jonah learned the consequences of trying to run from God in Jonah 1. God told him to go to the city of Nineveh and warn the cruel Ninevites about the upcoming judgment they would face for their actions. Jonah did not want to go, so he got on a boat and headed to a different city, Tarshish. As he was on a boat to Tarshish, God caused a great storm that threatened to destroy the boat and take the lives of everyone on the boat. Jonah knew God had sent this storm because of his disobedience, so he eventually convinced the others on the boat to throw him into the ocean. The storm stopped as soon as they threw him off the boat. Then, God "arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah" (verse 17). For three days and nights, Jonah was inside the fish. Jonah tried to run, but he could not outrun God. He could not hide from Him. While this was a less-than-ideal situation for Jonah, God was still working in Jonah's life. Jonah could not run from God, and that was a good thing.
Like Jonah, we cannot hide or run from God. If this makes you feel unsettled, take heart. God always works for our good and His glory. He never gives up on us and, as we will discover from Jonah's story, gives us more chances to obey and follow Him.
Have you been hiding or running from what God is calling you to do? The running and hiding may look like making excuses, keeping a full and busy schedule so you do not have time to do what God has asked you to do, or something else. Acknowledge today what your running has looked like. Have a conversation with God where you admit that you have been running. Tell Him you are sorry for running and ask for the courage to stop running or hiding from Him and start walking towards Him in obedience instead.
Jonah 1:13-17
"Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn't make it. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah's God. "O Lord," they pleaded, "don't make us die for this man's sin. And don't hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons."
15 Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! 16 The sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.
17 Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights."
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