Jonah 1-4

There are so many lessons to be learned from Jonah. Today the sailors spoke to me, maybe for the first time. They were pagan. they didn’t know God and most likely thought He was just another god like the ones they worshiped.

When the storm came they cried out to their gods, they tried to lighten the ship by throwing their valuable cargo overboard. They did everything they knew to do to save themselves.

These seem like really good men. Even when Jonah said God was punishing him and that if they wanted to be saved they needed to throw him overboard, they couldn’t do it. They continued to struggle against the storm, throwing more things overboard while sparing the life of Jonah.

But no matter how moral they were, or how hard they worked, or how many times they cried out to their gods, the storm kept getting worse. It wasn’t until they obeyed God that the storm calmed, and they were saved.

Does that remind you of so many in our world these days? Sometimes we think the enemies of God are bad people. But many, if not most are nice, moral, hard working, well meaning people doing everything they can to calm the storm, to be ok, to save themselves. What they find it hard to do is to surrender to the will of God. Thing is, there is no salvation apart from God.

I’m so glad the sailors we read about in the book of Jonah recognized the truth about God and believed. I pray the same will be true for the modern-day sailors who are trying so hard to save themselves. May they give it up, surrender to God, obey Him, accept the gift of grace through the blood of Jesus… and be saved.