"School of Hard Knocks" Diploma--Jonah 2: 8-10, Part II

Once you seek wholeness in the Lord, your resolve will be tested.  Along the Monterey Coast in California are the wonderful Monterey cypresses. They grow on the edge of the steep coastal cliffs, and instead of tall and erect like their fellow inland cypresses, they are bent away from the ocean, due to the high winds that pummel the coast.  Their very character has been shaped by the winds, and although they bend to the winds, they do not break. 

Jonah’s character has been shaped by his experience.  The winds will come. The Lord calls him a second time to go to Nineveh and preach His word.  But he won’t be afraid this time.  He has seen the mightiness of the Lord and has experienced His discipline.

Wait! His discipline?  How can that be beneficial?  It’s painful!  Look at James’ take on discipline: 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, Who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. (1:1-8) 

Perseverance is hanging in there through the tough times and it will grow your character.  What is this growth going to produce?  It produces maturity and completeness.  God’s discipline is to produce maturity and completeness in your character, so you can face life with confidence, not in yourself, but in Him alone. 

Teenagers are so challenging because they think they know enough to live life without any more guidance from their parents.  Their lack of wisdom, largely due to a lack of experience, and sometimes an unwillingness to learn from their mistakes, leads to the opposite of what parents want for their children: maturity. 

A mature attitude is truly wonderful.  It saves a person much heartache, for the decisions reached and acted on produce positive results, and keeps the person from negative consequences.

I once heard a high school girl tell her classmates about a night that forever changed her life.  She and some friends were drinking, and they decided to drive over to another friend’s house.  She was the driver, and was having trouble seeing the road, due to all the dust that was being kicked up by the cars in front of her. Her friend offered to drive, and although this girl hesitated, she finally said yes.

A few miles up the road, the new driver didn’t see the turn, and the truck flipped over and crashed, ejecting the driver from the vehicle and killing her.  I admired this young woman’s courage to share her story in front of her classmates, telling of a fateful decision. 

I looked around the room and wondered: How many of these students are actually taking her message to heart?  A few moments earlier I heard a few young men talk boastfully about their drinking exploits.  Did they really hear her?  Or did they assume that they would not make that mistake because they could handle their booze?

Wisdom comes from a humble heart, and if God has to discipline us to achieve that humility, you bet He will, for the consequences from arrogance can be deadly. 

Finally, let’s look at the Bible’s words on discipline, so that we understand God’s motives for His chastening hand on our lives.  Psalm 71:19-21 says,

Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
     you who have done great things.
Who is like you, God?
Though you have made me see troubles,
     many and bitter,
     you will restore my life again;
      from the depths of the earth
     you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor
     and comfort me once more.

Do you hear what psalmist is saying?  It is because of God’s character, His love and His goodness, that he knows that he is not suffering at the hands of an evil tyrant.  God will lift him up in due time.  Salvation is on the way. 

David asks pleadingly of God in Psalm 6:1-4,  

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger
     or discipline me in Your wrath.
Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am faint.
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
How long, O Lord, how long?
Turn, O Lord, and deliver me;

     save me because of Your unfailing love.

David knows he can ask for mercy and deliverance and he will be heard.  Why? God’s character is an utterly righteous character.      

Satan always tries to assassinate God’s character when we go through suffering.  Satan insinuates God doesn’t love you anymore, you’re past His forgiveness, and He doesn’t care. The satanic list of accusations is endless.  Remember:  it’s hard to argue with Satan.  He’s been around a long time, and he is an expert in the art of deceitful persuasion. 

So, go to the Psalms when you go through trials.  David and his fellow writers plead to God in their hurt and in their anger.  They always, however, reaffirm His character.  They make their appeals based on Who He is.  

In other words, you wouldn’t plead with someone who you know is incapable of mercy or love.  We plead to Him because He cares.  Period. 

David affirms in Psalm 25:8-12, 

Good and upright is the Lord;
     therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right
     and teaches them his way.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful
     toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.
For the sake of your name, Lord,
     forgive my iniquity, though it is great.
Who, then, are those who fear the Lord?
He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.

I love how David puts it in verse 15:  “My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only He will release my feet from the snare.”  Bingo!  Not clinging to his fear, David keeps his focus on his Deliverer, even though the going gets rough.  

The writer of Hebrews echoes this as well: 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? (12:1-7) 

The writer of Hebrews then goes on to say that God disciplines us:

[F]or our good that we might share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (12:10-11)

When we’re vomited up on the beach, we now carry a badge of honor. We have been disciplined by our loving God.

God is looking to our future and the fruit we have yet to produce.

Our fear keeps us bound to the past and what we have miserably produced.

His eyes are on our future. His eyes are on what we will be. 

What is our part in all of this? We need to humbly seek His wisdom. Once we’ve know what He wants us to do, we need to be obedient and do it.

Don’t sit on the sand.  Pick the seaweed out of your hair.  Rise up and move forward.  

Nineveh awaits.  

Grab your diploma from the School of Hard Knocks on the way out!  You’ve earned it. 

A Little (Easter) Bunny Trail with Jonah and Jesus

When we read Jonah, we see how God wants to restore this sin-soaked planet. He calls His reluctant prophet, who is justifiably horrified at the people he's supposed to go and share the love of Yahweh with: the Ninevites.  Jonah is just fine with God working in and through His chosen ones, but THOSE PEOPLE?  C'mon, Lord, they are beyond the pale; they pillage, murder and stack up their enemies' skulls with impunity.  Yuck. 

But God's kingdom class both the oppressed and the oppressor:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter. (Eccles. 4:1)

God desires to see all come to repentance: 

Say to them, "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’" (Ezek. 33:11) 

Jesus makes it clear the order of God's salvation plan: 

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. (John 4:22)

Paul echoes it: 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. (Rom. 1:16)

Jonah does not grasp the inclusivity of God's plan, for he is judging the behavior of a pagan people, not seeing them as fellow sinners, as part of the human family who desperately need the touch of Yahweh.   

What I love about the Scriptures is when you've read verses in the past and they suddenly jump out at you with a freshness and an urgency. I am reading through a chronological Bible these days. It fits how I think.  I am an unabashed history nerd, and so having the Scripture unfold in historical order (some interpretation is necessary, to be sure), I can better understand the trajectory of God's salvation story. 

I am reading Jonah now in this Bible (this blog comes from a study I did some time ago) and some familiar verses popped out! We just passed the momentous celebration of Easter.  We look once more  into the empty tomb and see what the apostles saw: He is not here! He is risen!  We also run to share this news about our risen Savior! 

So, when I read these verses, I realized just how much Jonah's experience echoes what Jesus is going to experience in His impending death. 

In Jesus' day, people knew their Hebrew Scriptures, and when they heard a small portion of Scripture, they could hear the rest of it in their minds.  The Pharisees were especially well-versed (pun intended) in knowing the larger context in which the verses were set. 

So, imagine the scene.  The Pharisees have asked Jesus for a sign. Jesus compares the tomb He will be laid in to the "belly of a huge fish."  The tomb will be in the "heart of the earth."  They get the implication Jesus is making between Jonah's experience and His own: He will not remain in the grip of death. 

Hmmmm.    

Let's set the scene from Matthew 12:38-41:

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here."

Let me humbly insert some verses from Matthew and the Psalms into Jonah's time in the belly of the whale that echo Jesus' coming death and resurrection. The Pharisees know the verses from this portion of Jonah and will be greatly disturbed by Jesus' not-so-subtle comparison. 

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said:

"In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.

"Then he said to them, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.'" (Matt. 26:38) 

You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
I said, "I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple."

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matt. 12:42)

The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.

"From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' (which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?')." (Matt. 27:45) 

But you, Lord my God,

brought my life up from the pit.

"For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, you will not allow your holy one to experience corruption." (Psalm 16:10)

When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

"Jesus answered, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.'” (John 2:19)

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.

"The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you.” (Matt. 28:5-7)

I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus [the LORD saves], for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21)

And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. (2:1-10)

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:16-20) 

Jonah exited the fish.

Jesus will exit the tomb. 

We will, like Jonah, are directed to preach the good news:  Salvation is open to all. 

"School of Hard Knocks" Diploma--Jonah 2: 8-10, Part I

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: 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
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:

Experience + Time = Knowledge

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:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
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.

[1] NIV Study Bible, note on Proverbs 1:7.

 [2] NIV Study Bible, note on Proverbs 28:26.