Those who cling to worthless idols
turn away from God’s love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, "Salvation comes from the Lord."
And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. (2: 8-10)
Jonah, literally sitting in the depths of his despair, makes a stunning remark in 2:8: “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” (NIV) Truly an idol is a “lying vanity” as the KJV translates. Jonah raises an interesting point: What idols are we clinging to?
Many of us cling to the idol of our fear. Fear gives us a kind of identity: “I can’t do that. I’m afraid!” Someone may try to talk us out of why our fear should not hold us back, but we cling even tighter to it. Why? Fear tells us who we are: We are victims. If we venture out, we will be victimized again. Our fear gives us permission to stay where we are. How could we possibly go out there and do well? We don’t even try. We remain in a state of inertia. Inertia means that if some object is at rest, it will remain at rest; likewise, if an object is in motion, it will stay in motion.
So, we are inert: We stay “at rest,” inactive and unresponsive. Our fear is the known. We know our past, the hurt we’ve suffered, and we draw a kind of comfort in knowing that the past is always there, answering for us.
The future is the unknown. We can’t know it, so we shrink back, and say, “No, I can’t do that!” or “I can’t be that!”
We may be “at rest,” but we are not at peace.
That’s why Jonah realized the worthlessness of idols. They are safe. They demand nothing from us. When we cling to fear, we forfeit grace. How so? Grace is God reaching out to us. If we do not extend out our hand, we may miss His grasp.
I had a friend who worked for the Coast Guard. He told me that the most dangerous moment of rescuing someone stranded in the water was when he would reach out to grab the victim’s hand. The victim, panicking, would then try to pull him into the water, and would thrash around even more violently. The panic that the victim was
experiencing meant that he or she wasn’t thinking, “Hey! This man from the Coast Guard is here to help
me. I will stay calm and grab his hand,
and he will hoist me up and we’ll ride up to the helicopter, hovering above
us.”
Instead, the panic and fear that the victim was experiencing
clouded (very understandably so) the victim’s calm cooperation in the rescue
attempt.
Fear does that to us.
We could very easily miss the mighty Hand coming down for us to grasp. What is the antidote to fear? Fear is counteracted by the wisdom of God. The
Word of God calls it the “fear of the Lord.”
Wait! Do we fear Him and hide
behind the cosmic couch, waiting for His mighty hand to strike us? No, the “fear of the Lord” is defined as “A
loving reverence for God that included submission to his lordship and to the
commands of his word.”[1]
That’s not a cringing, clinging kind of fear. It is a profound realization that the One Who
threw the stars into space and wove DNA out of four basic chemicals loves you
deeply. Let’s look at how fear of the
Lord and wisdom liberate us from our fear:
all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
To him belongs eternal praise. (Ps.111:10 KJV)
“Good understanding:” that’s an important first step. I was a teacher and I have taught in many
different settings: university, junior high and high school. The one thing all students in all grades have
in common is (drum roll, please): The First Day of Class. Everyone walks in looking anxious and full of
questions: “How can I get an A in this class?
Is there lots of homework? How
strict a grader are you?”
The lack of knowledge about the class produces a feeling of
being lost and students do not like that!
Once I discuss the expectations of the class, a little about my
experience and myself, the students seem a little less nervous. It still takes time for students to become
familiar with the pace of the class and what I am looking for in the
assignments, but knowledge comes from experiencing the class.
Knowledge increases over time, as long as you stick with it
and do not drop out of the process. Here’s
an equation that might help:
That’s why we are disappointed with ourselves (or others)
when we stop learning a particular task.
We wonder later that if we had only stuck with it, how much better we
would be now.
Jonah’s time in the whale (yes, it is three days, but they are long days) and his experience of having no one but the Lord to turn to, gives him a kind of knowledge that allows him to reassert God’s sovereignty. He missed God’s grace by clinging to his fear. Now he can see that God alone will be his strength. Proverbs 15:33 says,
The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor.
Jonah is now humbled, sitting in the sloshing stomach juices of a whale. He now sees how his fear contrasts with his knowledge of the living God. Proverbs 28:26 affirms,
Those who trust in themselves are fools,but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.
Another way to interpret “walks in wisdom” is to see it as equal to one “who trusts in the Lord.”[2]
It’s not just head knowledge. It is knowledge of Who God is and what He
desires of us. Proverbs 3:5-6 says
it beautifully:
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Contrast that with our failure to trust the Lord:
Whoever scorns instruction will pay for it,but whoever respects a command is rewarded. (Prov. 13:13)
So, are we leaning on our limited knowledge or seeking with
humility what the Lord would teach us and have us do?
Sometimes I assume I am driving the speed limit, because I
don’t think I am going all that fast. My
driving seems safe to me. But the speed
limit is not a “speed suggestion,” and how many times, when I have been pulled
over, am I asked by the officer, “Do you know how fast you were going?”
That question and my response allow the officer to determine
how aware I am. Did I even notice the
speed limit signs, or better yet, did I even notice him sitting a ways up the
road, with his radar gun pointing right at me?
Am I following the law in regards to speeding? My lack of knowledge or awareness will not
absolve me of a ticket. My standard of
“safe” is not a substitute for the vehicle code.
If we scorn the Lord’s instruction, just like Jonah did in
the earlier part of the story, we will have consequences. The Lord’s correction is not done to hurt or
humiliate us, but to teach us.
Look at Jonah now! He now has wisdom born of the experience of sitting in the darkness, relying solely upon God. Instead of grumbling about how unfair the Lord is, and playing the victim so he need not change, he sings,
But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord. (2:9)
That “But, I” is significant. He’s contrasting himself to those who cling
to worthless idols and lose out on God’s grace.
Here’s where experience can soften us and make us more sympathetic to
others. Jonah’s original call was to
preach to those who cling to worthless idols: the people of Nineveh. Instead of being scared by them, or degrading
them for their heathen ways, he now sees how their belief in worthless idols is
robbing them of God’s grace, the joy of knowing who He is and how much He loves
them. Their lack of knowledge of God has
made their existence lack true meaning.
My daughter, who is my spiritual hero, went through a severe
battle in her teens with bipolar disorder.
She went into a mental hospital twice, and ended up in a rehabilitation
center in another state for six months, for therapy and to finish school. She checked herself into the hospital the
first time for she knew that she was in serious trouble. She struggled, cursed, cried and fought her
way out of the darkness of mental illness.
She gained an insightful knowledge of suffering that many people will never
truly know.
What is she doing now?
She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Social Work, and now has her PhD. She dedicated time to obtaining these degrees where she could learn how to counsel people towards wholeness. She told me that you couldn’t help others
until you change how you see yourself.
She sees herself as more than a survivor. She sees herself
as having overcome tremendous obstacles. When she speaks to very troubled
people, she sees the potential in them to overcome as well.
But, if she saw herself as a victim, she would see her
clients the same way. She would be less inclined to tell them the truth about
their fallacious thinking, destructive behaviors and attitudes that are hindering
their recovery. She has a no-nonsense
approach. She speaks the truth lovingly to
them, because she sees their potential.
She remembers the potential in herself when she was a troubled teen.
Jonah now sees himself in the light of God’s grace, and not
as a disobedient prophet and fallen follower of the one true God. The focus is off himself and on God. He makes a thanksgiving offering with a vow. Vows are scary for people today, for what we
speak in solemn ceremonies is often ignored later on when life gets tough. Vows today have an elastic quality to
them. A vow is a promise to carry out
what you say you will do, regardless of how you may feel down the road.
Psalm 66:13-14 says,
I will come to Your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you—vows my lips promise and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.
It’s easy to promise God what you will do when you are standing in church or in front of a group and the bullets aren’t flying. Our characters are tested when the bullets fly! Suddenly our words, spoken in peace, become either a lighthouse for us to strive towards in the storm, or are a burden on our shoulders, soon to be discarded.
Jonah vowed to the Lord out of a sense of gratitude, and
this indicates a growth in his character:
I now want to show the Lord how thankful I am for revealing Himself
to me. I will do better from now on.
Jonah affirms that, “Salvation comes from the Lord.” He now
knows he is in God’s hands. He now knows
God is in charge of his world. Then,
boom! Jonah is vomited out onto the
beach. Salvation comes in many forms,
does it not? Have you ever been “vomited
out”?
The doors close even though you were so sure that you’d be
walking through them. You lose the race that you were striving to win. Sometimes salvation is not just a deliverance
from sin and death; it is deliverance from circumstances that may have been an
impediment to our growth. We may not see
that at the time, but God knows how much maturity we need to go forth and
fulfill our calling.
Jonah is growing inside the whale’s stomach, because he is
in an intense “prayer closet” with no distractions. God has work for him to do. Jonah’s character will need some major
fine-tuning before he can fulfill his calling.
Out onto the beach he came, covered in seaweed and gastric
juices. Here is one man who will never
be the same and whose fear was indeed a worthless idol. Salvation comes from
the one true God, and while Jonah will have to learn that lesson again, he’s now
on the sand. He is standing in the clear
light of day.
No comments:
Post a Comment