Mission Impossible

Read: Jonah 1

Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the LORD. Jonah 1:3

IN WORD

Three prophets, one era. Jonah, Hosea, and Amos were contemporaries, each ministering the word of the Lord in the northern kingdom of Israel. Hosea had sacrificed a pure marriage for the sake of his message. Amos had left his shepherding and gotten in trouble with the king. And Jonah . . . well, Jonah bailed out. To him, the prophetic sacrifice would be too great. The last thing he wanted to do was to preach judgment in a very hostile city.

To get an idea of Jonah’s task, imagine being told by God during the height of the Cold War to stand in Moscow’s Red Square and shout judgment on communism. Or imagine an assignment to march through the streets of Mecca denouncing Islam. In either case, it would be understood as a suicide mission. Jonah wasn’t in the mood to die just yet, so he fled.

Nearly three thousand years later, we may find it easy to criticize Jonah’s disobedience—after all, plenty of other prophets willingly sacrificed their lives—but we should be able to appreciate his dilemma. Nineveh was the center of Assyria, the dreaded enemy of Israel. Just a few decades later, it would be used by God to destroy the northern kingdom according to the words of the prophets. Just because God wanted to give Assyrians a chance to repent didn’t imply that an Israelite prophet would see their repentance as even a remote possibility.

IN DEED

But God doesn’t call us to do the possible, does He? He searches the hearts of people who are willing to embrace the impossible for the sake of His name. Such heroic risks are defined in His Kingdom as “great faith,” and they inspire His people for generations to come. Hebrews 11 lists people of faith who accomplished great things for God and who often died in the process. But in the eternal Kingdom, they are honored above all.

When God asks the impossible of you, how do you respond? Let faith—great, risky faith—guide your life.

ADDITIONAL READING: Hebrews 11:13-16

I am one who would rather sink with faith than swim without it.

STANLEY BALDWIN