Using Jonah as a theme to promote missions may make you think I am some kind of a weird mission team leader. I hope not. I hope you will see that the Lord has been in the business of restoring lost people to Himself ever since Adam and Eve's first sin. Remember that He went looking for them in the garden.
Probably the most difficult part of Jonah's book is chapter 2. Jonah's prayer contains a lot of imagery about facing death by drowning in the ocean. You can visualize Jonah's despair in verses 2-6, being pounded by billowing waves, covered in seaweed, and sinking into the seemingly bottomless deep.
These verses seem to trough and crest like waves, there are lots of lows but verses 4 and 6 each end in a high point, a little breaker that lifts Jonah's feelings in hope. 'Yet again I shall look upon your holy temple,' and 'yet you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God' express Jonah's sure hope that God had not abandoned him. Even in his helpless place he knew the Lord would rescue him.
Verses 7 and 9 sound like Jonah's repentance to me. At his most desperate point his prayer reached the Lord's temple. 'What I have vowed I will pay' may be his commitment to obey. Being a prophet implies that he may have vowed to serve the Lord and obeying the Lord by delivering the Lord's message would be his payment.
Since Jonah was not an idol worshiper verse 8 may be a reference to the people of Nineveh. God's reason for sending Jonah was to offer them His steadfast love in place of their vain idols. 'Salvation belongs to the Lord' could be Jonah's way of saying that he depended on the Lord to be saved, or that to whom he takes the message of salvation is not his choice, but the Lord's and this time the Lord chose the Ninevehites.
Our inconveniences in Peru in no way compare to Jonah's troubles in the ocean, but hopefully we are not running as he was. Salvation belongs to the Lord still applies to lost people we will meet. Our commitment, a vow of sorts, is that Jesus is our Lord, and our Lord's command is to go and share the gospel.
Join us on the Peru mission trip; application deadline is Thursday, March 31. Pray that the Lord will provide doctors and dentists.
No comments:
Post a Comment