#DailyDevotion Do You Really Think You Can Hide From God?
Jonah 1:1–17 This is the Word of the LORD which came to Jonah the son of Amittai: 2“Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh and announce to her that I see how wicked they are.”3But Jonah got up and ran away from the LORD to Tarshish. He came down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board to get away from the LORD and go with them to Tarshish. 4But the LORD sent a strong wind on the sea; a great storm rose; they thought the ship would be wrecked…. 7Then they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots to see who has brought this disaster on us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8“Please tell us,” they asked him, “who has brought this disaster on us? What is your work? Where do you come from? What is your country? And which people do you come from?” 9“I’m a Hebrew,” he answered them, “and worship the LORD, the God of heaven Who made the sea and the land.” 10Terribly frightened, the men asked him, “What did you do?” They now knew he was running away from the LORD, because he told them.
Well we all know this story probably. We often fix our attention on a number of different things like Jonah disobeying the LORD, or getting swallowed by a big fish, or moping because God didn’t wipe them out. Today, I would like to focus on running away from the LORD. Now it may sound rather foolish to you to try to run away from the LORD but you haven’t just sinned. You might remember in the Garden when Adam and Eve sinned against the LORD they tried to hide from him. Jonah seems to be following their lead and running away from the LORD going to Tarshish and then getting on a boat. What was he thinking? What makes this even more amazing is that on the boat, when asked who he was and what did he do he confesses he, “worship[s] the LORD, the God of heaven Who made the sea and the land.” I mean right there he pretty much acknowledges the LORD is everywhere because he created everything.
But we are pretty stupid when we sin. We don’t steal, rob and kill at night just because it is convenient. We don’t want to be seen by God and men. We don’t turn out the light in our rooms if we are doing things we shouldn’t be doing for no reason. We don’t want God to see us. Many times when people sin or break the law they try to make a relocation solution to their problems but no matter what, God the LORD, the creator of heaven, earth and the sea knows what they did and knows where they are. He knows what you did and knows where you are.
Well hopefully (should I say this even) the LORD won’t have to go to such extant as he goes with Jonah to bring him to repent. Well when they throw Jonah overboard, the LORD sends a big fish to get Jonah. Now we often think Jonah is alive in the belly of the big fish. Jesus though uses Jonah’s time in the fish as a precusor to his own resurrection after being in the belly of the earth over three days. While it is a miraculous thing for the LORD to preserve Jonah alive in the fish, it is just as much of a miracle that he would raise Jonah from the dead when the fish vomits him out. You repent of your sins today so that when Christ returns, the earth vomits you out alive, whole, immortal like Jesus when he rose from the dead.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to repent rightly so on the last day we may be raised to everlasting life even as our Lord Jesus Christ did, in whose name we pray. Amen.