When God Says "Go" and We Say "No"

Midweek Meditations: Jonah 1:1-3

Welcome to Midweek Meditations—an experiment here at Ordinary Matters. I enjoy the immense richness of dwelling in biblical texts—letting them question me more than I question them. This series on Jonah is my first attempt to bring this practice into this space. If it resonates, it may become a regular offering alongside our more thematic explorations. I’d love to hear your thoughts along the way—so please leave a comment!

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Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the Lord”

Jonah 1:1-3

The Reluctant Prophet

Who is Jonah the son of Amittai?

We find him mentioned in one other place in Scripture: 2 Kings 14:25.

This historical reference provides some crucial background: “Jeroboam restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.”

From this, we learn that Jonah lived during the first half of the 8th century BCE. His father was Amittai (ironically meaning “faithfulness”), and he was from Gath-hepher. Most significantly, he did his prophetic work under King Jeroboam II's reign—a king who “did what is evil in the sight of the Lord.”

This is our first clue that something is off.

Jonah worked alongside a corrupt king, prophesying in support of expanding Israel’s borders. He was essentially a nationalist prophet, concerned with building up Israel politically and geographically. Meanwhile, his contemporaries—Amos and Hosea—were prophesying against King Jeroboam and Israel, calling out their moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

Two very different prophetic imaginations emerge: Jonah focused on boundaries and nationalism versus Amos and Hosea concerned with spiritual renewal and faithfulness.

Anyone reading this in its historical context who was faithful to God would have been shocked: “The word of the Lord came to who?! Jonah?! Really?” But this reminds us of something profound:

The word of the Lord doesn’t come to those who deserve it.

God does not show partiality when revealing himself. He simply reveals himself and invites a response. People don’t always respond appropriately—they ignore him, misuse what they’ve heard, filter it through political lenses, or even run away. Even so, God is willing to invite even the worst of us—and the worst in us—to respond to who he is.

The GPS Recalculates

So what does God invite Jonah to do?

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

Jonah 1:2

Where God sends Jonah is just as shocking as who receives the Word. Jonah from little Gath-hepher sent to the great city of Nineveh. That would be like God calling someone from a backwoods town in Saskatchewan to go to Dubai. There’s a massive cultural disconnect.

But even worse, Nineveh was not exactly a tourist destination. In the ancient world, it was a terrible, terrible place—the capital of the Assyrian empire. As Jewish writer Hayyim Lewis describes:

The Assyrians were the Nazi storm-troopers of the ancient world. They were the pitiless power-crazed foe. They uprooted entire peoples in their fury for conquest. They extinguished the Northern Kingdom of Israel. For Jonah, Nineveh, then, was no ordinary city; it carried doom-laden, tragic memories, it stood as a symbol of evil incarnate.

We have ancient writings that vividly describe how commanders from Nineveh would skin people alive and pile up their flesh for miles. Nineveh was genuinely horrific. Unsurprisingly, Nineveh’s evil “came up before the Lord.”

Surely Jonah would have thought, “Excuse me, God? Did I hear you right? The Assyrians? Their capital, Nineveh?”

Remember, Jonah is a prophet concerned—so far in his career—about Israel. Expanding Israel’s borders. Building walls. Separating Israel from people like the Assyrians. Surely Jonah would be thinking, “God, you’re calling the wrong person. I’m for Israel—not the Assyrians. I’m concerned about Jerusalem—not Nineveh.” But God says to Jonah: Go to another nation, go to another city, go outside the borders of Israel, go to Nineveh. Get out of Israel—I’m concerned about Nineveh and their evil.

Perhaps we’d feel the weight of this if God said to us:

“Go to Nigeria and prophesy against Boko Haram” or “Go to Thailand and prophesy against the ‘Piglet Gangs’ who control child prostitution.” Or perhaps more aptly, “Go to Libya and prophesy against ISIS.” Call out their evil, but don’t do it from home, and no hashtags allowed. Go to their territory—do it there on their home turf!

Imagine being called to leave the ideological walls we’ve built for safety. No longer protected by freedom of speech, familiar laws, our borders, and boundaries that separate us from such groups. This might come close to what Jonah was feeling—a big, unusual, confusing, terrifying calling that pushes him outside everything comfortable and everything he believes in: :God is the God of Israel—not the God of Nineveh.”

The Great Escape

In response to the Word, Jonah “the faithful” shows his cards:

But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the Lord.

Jonah 1:3

Jonah, in telling this, can’t emphasize enough how much he tried to flee. He rose and fled. He got up and got out of town. He headed in the opposite direction—as far as he could go. Nineveh was north, so he goes south. He went down to Joppa, 550 miles southwest of Nineveh. He went down into the ship. He’s descending from the call. He wanted to go to Tarshish in the far west, another 2,500 miles away. He tried to get as far away from God’s calling as possible.

And where he tries to go is telling.

By any measure, Tarshish was the opposite of Nineveh. We don’t know much about Tarshish, but it’s described as a sort of Shangri-La—a utopian city. It was a port city, likely with beaches, beauty, and tranquility. In modern terms, if you were in Israel, it would be like God saying “Go to Iraq,” and you deciding, “Well, I could go to Iraq, or I could head to the coast of Spain. I’ll go to Costa de la luz. Take in the sun and the beach. Kick back, drink Sangria.”

Partial Obedience Is Actually Disobedience

There’s complexity here that we shouldn't overlook. Technically, Jonah obeys half of God’s command. He rises up and he goes. That’s what God said to do! He just changes the location. “I won't go to Nineveh, I’ll go to Tarshish.” And if we’re clever, we’ll convince ourselves that’s close enough to the command, so we’re okay.

We might twist the command so we feel like we’re keeping it, but in actuality we’re just fleeing. We’re running, trying to get as far away from God as possible.

This reminds me of when my professional life started with a paper route—a true rite of passage.

I delivered the Pennysaver. I had a command: “Go! Deliver newspapers to the houses on your route.” So I went. With my Mom—in her Volvo. And I faithfully delivered newspapers. I discovered quickly how boring it was to put paper after paper in mailbox after mailbox. My Mom grew tired of it too. One day she said, “Love, I have my own job. It’s time you do this on your own.”

I was not thrilled to bear this burden alone. But I went, with my newspapers in my satchel. But I decided to subtly change the command: “I’ll go deliver newspapers. I’ll just change where.”

I found a drainage ditch that seemed hungry for newspapers. So, I shoved the hundred-or-so papers into it. Out of sight, out of mind. I wandered aimlessly through the neighbourhood until I figured I’d been gone long enough to have believably delivered the papers.

Unfortunately, the drainage ditch was more faithful at its job than I was with mine.

The next day it rained.

And because the ditch was blocked, I inadvertently flooded a few yards. It didn’t take much detective work to find the culprit. My mom drove me to the scene of the crime, and I had to pull soggy newspapers out of a drainage ditch, in the rain.

The kicker: my Mom watched from the warmth of her Volvo.

I took the command seriously. I went and “delivered” newspapers that day. But I twisted the command—I changed their destination.

Our problem is that if God said to us, “Go to Maui,” many of us would smile and say, “Thank you, Lord! Jesus! Hallelujah!” Well, we’d be more reserved outwardly. But inwardly: yes! Maui is our Tarshish. It’s exciting, vibrant, full of opportunity and culture. Many of our metropolitan centres are beautiful and desirable. To us, they’re Tarshish—not Nineveh. So we would gladly say “Yes” if God asked us to go.

But I suggest we would still twist God’s command.

God doesn’t just say “Go” to Jonah. He says, “Go and call out against Nineveh for their evil has come up before me.”

We need to recognize that every place—whether its a bustling metropolis or quiet rural community—is both Tarshish and Nineveh.

Most of us focus on the Tarshish part: the good, the beauty. But we neglect the problems. We have blinders to our own Nineveh. Sure, our communities aren’t conducting bloodthirsty military campaigns. But there’s still injustice in our streets. Intense loneliness and isolation. An ever-increasing disparity between rich and poor. Racial divisions. Human trafficking. Ongoing homelessness. Even in rural communities, there’s addiction, domestic violence, poverty, and environmental exploitation.

We say to God, “We'll go where you ask, but we will be silent.” And maybe we would even love to see things change, but God send somebody else.

We must also be aware not to focus only on our communities as evil, bad Nineveh. Places are more nuanced. There are deep social and cultural problems. There is spiritual emptiness. But there is good that can be affirmed and celebrated. There are common causes we can partner in. Every location is more complex than being all bad or all good. And God calls us to speak to both realities.

We Want To Run

The real, underlying issue is that we want to run away from God’s call. Tucked away in our souls is an inclination to run away from joining God in what he’s doing in the world—what he’s doing in our communities, let alone what he’s doing in the lives of our enemies.

We view our location just as a place to live. We get sucked into our daily rhythms. We don’t consistently live within our communities as if we’re called to them for the sake of what God wants to do. We neglect our responsibility to create time and space to give rather than taking. We see where we live as something to enjoy or simply endure, something to consume or escape from.

Often, there’s little to no room in our lives to participate in spiritual, social, and cultural renewal. We have no margin. We have no space for God’s mission. Usually, it’s because our lives have become bloated from living solely for ourselves—our own enjoyment, goals, and wants—or it’s because we’re in a season or stage of life that demands so much there’s nothing left to give.

Yet sometimes the truth is that we don’t want to make the sacrifice of comfort and time required to get engaged. We would rather settle for creating a safe little church bubble that doesn’t seep into every part of our lives.

We want God, we just don't want God to send us into our communities on his behalf. We don't want God to send us into our workplaces on his behalf. We don't want God to send us into our families and friendships on his behalf.

We don’t mind if God is the one who reaches out and extends the gospel; we just don’t want God to do it in and through us. Essentially, we’re saying, “You can be Lord, just not Lord over every part of our lives.”

These quiet thoughts that we try to deny unveil that we’re not much different than Jonah. We want a smaller version of God. A God who fits within our own comforts and desires, who can make no inconvenient demands upon our lives. But if this is the case, we’re ultimately settling for an idol made in our own image.

Running from God's Face

What we fail to realize is that when we flee from God’s call to join in his mission, we’re actually fleeing from God himself.

Twice in verse 3, we’re told that Jonah was fleeing “from the presence of the Lord.” This phrase in Hebrew is literally “the face of the Lord.” This was Israel's way of describing their intimate and unique relationship with God. So, Jonah isn’t just fleeing from God’s presence; he is fleeing from who God is—the intimacy of truly knowing him.

The reality is that Jonah doesn’t like what he sees:

God has always been a God of mission.

Ever since the first disobedient bites in the Garden of Eden, God has been actively working within the world to restore it to himself. When God set Israel apart as a nation, it was never for their own sake, but for his purpose in the world.

Israel was set apart to be a light and a blessing to the world. By how they lived, they were called to show the world God’s ways, show his goodness, be a sign, a witness—a picture of the way things are meant to be. Because God is not solely the God of Israel but the God of every nation, the God of the universe—even the God of the Assyrians in Nineveh. If Israel looked to God's face, this is what they would see: his face is set toward the world—including their enemies.

God’s eyes always find the poor, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the slave, and the sinner. God aches for humanity to be restored to him—even his enemies. He weeps over more than just individuals. He weeps for the systemic brokenness and evil in cities, towns, and rural communities alike.

Jesus himself wept over Jerusalem. And we see the face of God in Christ; that’s why he is so alluring. That’s why Jesus draws us in. So if we want to know our calling and mission within our communities, we gaze upon the face of Jesus, the very face of God. Jesus is the one who cares for the poor and the widows, who adopts the orphans, who welcomes the foreigner, slaves, and sinners.

If we want to see the face of Jesus more fully in our lives, it’ll likely happen when we care for others as if they are Christ himself. As Jesus teaches in Matthew 25:31-46:

"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.'"

All of this sounds good and beautiful and worth it. And yet, day in and day out, we can still flee from living like this. That’s what Jonah forces us to confront:

Why is it that we flee from God?

What is going on in our hearts that we run from his call?

Why do we turn away from seeing Christ in the stranger?

We don’t get the full answer yet. But there’s something in our hearts that echoes the story of Jonah—the part that convinces us that doing half of what God asks is enough, the part that tries to leave God behind, the part that avoids his presence, the part that simply doesn’t want God to be God.

This is a part of ourselves worth wrestling with.