Jonah 1:1-3 –
Can We Run Away?

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

We can learn a lot about Jonah, and ourselves, from the first three verses of the book of Jonah. We learn that Jonah has the gift of preaching because God calls him to go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it. We also see that God gives Jonah a difficult task: he is to preach against the wickedness in the city of Nineveh.

In verse 3, we see a word that we often find in the Scriptures: “but.” Jonah does not want to do the task God has given him, so he tries to run away from the Lord.

How often do we do this when God gives us a task? For us, the task can sometimes be very simple, such as talking to our neighbor about what Jesus has done for us, doing an unexpected good deed for someone we really don’t like, or helping out at church in a way we think is beneath us. There is no task too big, too small, or too unimportant for God to be involved with.

When we don’t do the tasks that God has given us, we are like Jonah: we are trying to run away from the Lord. As we will see throughout the book of Jonah, this is a foolish endeavor. Trying to run away from the Lord never works. He is, after all, all-powerful and fully in charge of His creation. God’s plan will not be thwarted by our disobedience. He always has ways to get us to do the tasks that He has for us.

When you find yourself thinking about running away from the Lord—stop! Turn around and don’t do it! You might end up in the belly of a fish for three days.

Do you really think you can run away from the Lord?