Jonah

Did you ever wonder what happened to all the men sailing with Jonah to Tarshish?  While Jonah spent three days in a fish belly those men continued on to their destination.  Imagine the stories the men told when they landed in the port.  The heights of the waves growing each time the story of was repeated.  “The crashing of the storm against the sides of the boat.”  “How many times were we nearly washed out of the boat? “ “How many time did the ship list so far that we feared we would capsize?”  “The sails were useless against the gale.”  “The oars were like toothpicks in the water.”  But every story centered on the strange man from Israel.  He said he was attempting to flee from his God so that he wouldn’t have to go to Nineveh.  This Jonah claimed that the God he worships rules land AND sea.  The men on the boat had never know any god to respond like Jonah’s God did.  Jonah said to cast him overboard and then his God would calm the storm, which he did when the men reluctant followed Jonah’s instructions.  Surely the story spread through Tarshish like wildfire after the boat was docked.  I wonder how quickly the story was passed along on the trade routes.  Maybe the story of a Jew named Jonah being sacrificed to the God of the land and the sea arrived in Nineveh before the prophet did.  I wonder if the people of Nineveh began looking for a Jew named Jonah?  I wonder if the sailors’ story prepared the way for Jonah’s message?   God could have used both to lead the people of Nineveh to humble their hearts before him.

It took me about 10 minutes to read this book.

Stuart