Do you ever feel like the Christian journey is more about relearning what we already know than learning something new?
Jonah had the same problem.
Welcome to The Whispering Willow.
I'm Diana,
And this is the first in a series of meditations on the story of Jonah.
I will present brief meditations on a few of my favorite new old lessons from Jonah.
Today's meditation is about running away.
Find a comfortable spot and reflect with me on the story of Jonah.
God gave Jonah a simple task.
In Jonah 1-2,
God says,
Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it,
Because its wickedness has come up before me.
Instead,
Jonah chose to run away.
A man of God would know that he couldn't truly run from the Lord.
So what did he think he was doing?
How many times do we find ourselves turning away from God's clear direction,
Even though we know it will end in sadness or frustration?
Yet we do it anyway,
Over and over.
I spent some time contemplating why,
And this is what I came up with.
The first reason is fear and self-preservation.
Sometimes we run from God because we are afraid of the demands of being a Christian.
Maybe we don't want to be questioned about what we're doing,
Or maybe we don't want to lose something we value.
These are the reasons Adam and Eve ran away.
Next,
Guilt and condemnation.
Guilt can trap us into feeling unworthy,
And we isolate ourselves from God so as not to receive His condemnation.
But it isn't His condemnation that is hurting us,
But our own.
The Bible is clear that God's love is greater than our heart's condemnation.
Some of us run from God because it feels uncomfortable,
Or maybe even unsafe.
This is where Jonah was,
Afraid to face the task or the people involved.
God's purpose is not always easy,
But He promises to deliver the righteous from their afflictions.
Finally,
Some of us run from God because we think we don't need Him,
And our pride tells us we can save the world on our own.
The question is why we would want to do it alone when we have a loving God who wants to help us.
The answer is distraction.
In fact,
Distraction is the problem in each of these scenarios.
Because if we have a true relationship with God,
Our undistracted mind would have no difficulty recognizing the falsehoods in each of these lines of thought.
Evil distracts us from the realities of God's love,
And causes us to forget what we know.
It may be worth taking some time today to contemplate your reasons for running from God,
And then focus on what you truly know about His love.
I hope this day leads you toward God.
If you enjoyed this meditation,
Come back again for lesson 2 on the story of Jonah.
