Jonah’s God (4)
[Jonah 2:1-10]
According to the article ‘Difficulties in the job’ by Eland Company in Korea, the difficulty of the work that seems to be intricately intertwined can be summarized in two ways. One is the difficulty of human relations and the other is the difficulty of work. According to the results of the survey, the difficulty of human relations is about twice the difficulty of work. Everyone wishes for a job without difficulty, but the pain in one's work may be the will of God and the price of sin (Internet).
There are six parts of the meaning of the job in God: (1) First is the means to understand the command of God and to accomplish the will of God; (2) Second is the means to train and succeed in God's way as Christians; (3) Third is the means of learning obedience as the children of God; (4) Fourth is the means to fulfill and serve each other's needs; (5) Fifth is the means to resemble God's holiness; (6) Sixth is the means by which we seek God (Internet). From the fifth and sixth meanings, the difficulty in the work is the God’s given means to resemble God's holiness and to seek God by remembering sin. A Christian worker who seeks the meaning of a job in God must not only withstand the difficulties and sufferings of his profession but also grow up to realize the will of God and rejoice and appreciate in difficult places.
In Jonah 2:1-10, Jonah's prayer comes out. Look at Jonah 2:1 – “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish.” Here, the Hebrew word for "prayer" is used as a meaning of thankful prayer (1 Sam. 2:1; 2 Sam. 7:27) (Park Yun-sun). Why did Jonah give such a prayer of thanks to God from the stomach of the great fish? The first reason is because of repentance through the sufferings of God. The second reason is because Jonah looked at God again in his sufferings. I hope and pray that as we meditate on Jonah 2:1-10, we can meet God who gives us suffering because of our sins and be challenged by Jonah who looked to God again in his sufferings.
First, our God is the God who gives us sufferings.
Look at Jonah 2:2 – “and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.” Where does suffering come from? This is what Pastor Kim Sung-young said: “The Bible says that the cause of all human suffering is sin. In his book ‘The Problem of Pain’, C. S. Lewis makes a clear statement of human sin and suffering. To solve the problem of suffering, one has to solve the problem of sin fundamentally. This is true happiness, freedom, and overcoming suffering in Christ” (Internet). Our initial response to suffering is 'Why does God give suffering?' We can also ask the question, 'How does the God of love cause his children to suffer?' Although I am not sure the answers to these questions, one thing I'm sure of is that there is a blessing in suffering. I remember reading a book by Pastor Ok Han Hum, ‘There is a will in suffering.’ In the book, Pastor Ok says, 'Suffering is a disguised blessing.' I agree with what he said. Whether suffering is because of our sin or not, I believe that the suffering that God gives is for our own good. One example is Jonah from Jonah chapter 2. Look at Jonah 2:3 – “For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, ….” We have already meditated on the fact that the sailors had thrown Jonah into the sea (1:15). But today's text Jonah 2:3 says that the Lord threw Jonah into the sea. What does this tell us? It was God’s plan to throw Jonah into the sea by the sailors in order to calm the stormy sea that was created by Creator God who threw the great wind on the sea to make disobedient Jonah to confess and repent his sins. Jonah recognized and acknowledged that God had done all these things in the stomach of the great fish. The lesson we have to learn here is that if we disobey God's command like Jonah, God will give us the afflictions of a storm of correction or of discipline for us so that we may turn from the path of disobedience to the path of obedience.
What were the sufferings of Jonah? The Bible tells us that they were at least four sufferings:
(1) Jonah's first suffering was the stomach of the great fish.
To better understand this suffering, we cannot ignore the Hebrew word "min". This Hebrew word comes out three times in Jonah chapter 2: (a) "From inside the fish" (v. 1), (2) "In (from) my distress" (v. 2), (3) "From the depths of the grave" (v. 2). These three phrases describe one situation. The situation is that Jonah in the stomach of the great fish. In other words, the two "min" phrases in verse 2 describe Jonah's experience in the stomach of the great fish. The word "suffering" has the meaning of "narrowness" and "fear". In a way, Jonah seems to be in fear in a narrow fish stomach. The word "from the depth of Sheol" was imagined as an underground cave, which was modeled after a Palestinian burial cave. Jonah was trapped in the fish and was almost dead. Because God threw Jonah deep into the sea, Jonah went down to the root of the mountains (v.6). Jonah was totally incapacitated in some ways. He was trapped like a prison so he could not do anything but only prayer. The verbs in verse 5 say, “encompassed me”, “engulfed me” and “wrapped around my head” tell us that Jonah had the fear of captivity. He was entangled in all these without hope.
(2) Jonah's second suffering was the Lord's waves.
Look at Jonah 2:3 – “… And the current engulfed me All Your breakers and billows passed over me.” Here the word “breakers” refers to God’s given waves that were breaking Jonah (Park Yun- sun). God was breaking Jonah's hard heart through his tools such as the great winds, the captains, and the sailors. Look at Psalms 88:7 – “Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. Selah.” Also, look at Psalms 42:7 – “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”
(3) Jonah’s third suffering was the feeling that Jonah was expelled from God’s sight.
Look at Jonah 2:4 – “So I said, 'I have been expelled from Your sight ….” The word" expelled "here is also found in Genesis 3:24 – “So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” This verse tells us that God drove disobedient Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. When Jonah said “I have been expelled from Your sight” was Jonah’s feeling rather than the fact. When Jonah was going through the sufferings of his own disobedience that he was receiving from the storm of discipline, which he received from God because of his unrepented and harden heart, he felt that God left him and God was not watching his sufferings. This feeling was not only for Jonah. The psalmist also has such feeling and this is what he said: “For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” (Ps. 43:2),” Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor, And do not go out with our armies” (44:9).
(4) Jonah's fourth suffering was that he was fainting away.
Look at Jonah 2:7 – “"While I was fainting away, ….” The word 'faint' here means 'to decline'. In other words, this word tells that Jonah was in an extreme discord. The situation of Jonah's suffering was total incompetence in which he could not escape (or be saved) by his own power. So for Jonah it would have been extremely disconcerting to have such a situation for three days.
I have learned a lesson about suffering from Henry Nowen's book, “Turn My Mourning into Dancing”. We often experience sadness while living our faith. The cause of the grief is pain and suffering. In such a situation, we make efforts in many ways to overcome the pain and suffering. We often try to deny, ignore, grumble and complain. But we should think about how God wants us to respond. The way God wants us to respond is to grieve the pain and suffering. This is the first step of dancing. The second step of the dance is to face the causes of pain and suffering. Nowen said that we should look straight the hidden loss that placed us in the prison of injustice, shame and guilt that paralyze us. The third step of dancing is to go through pain and suffering and loss and wound. We should never pour too much energy into denying it. The fourth step of the dance is to meet Father God in pain, suffering, loss and wound (Nawen).
Suffering leads to maturity. Augustine said, ‘As the stars shine brighter in the dark night, the soul becomes nobler in the midst of suffering.’ When we know that suffering is God’s will and strive for a life of repentance, we will grow spiritually more through suffering. Suffering was hard to bear at the time. Sometimes it is like death, and it feels darker than death. However, the pearls are made in the pain of chewing the sand. As the psalmist David confessed, suffering is good for us. Because of suffering, we learn more of God's ordinances and realize our own lack: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word” (Ps. 119:67), “It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes” (v. 71), “I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me” (v. 75).
Second, when God gives us suffering, we must look to God again.
When Jonah was going through the sufferings, he looked upon God again. Look at Jonah 2:4 – “So I said, 'I have been expelled from Your sight Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.” Why did Jonah feel that he was expelled from the sight of the Lord? This was because Jonah remembered his sin inside the stomach of the great fish, the sin of disobeying the God’s command, especially his sin of fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Here, ‘fleeing from the presence of the Lord’ means fleeing from the word of God. In other words, Jonah was fleeing from the command of God, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it” (1:2). As a result of Jonah's fleeing geographically far away from his mission field, Nineveh, he felt God was far away from him while he was inside the stomach of the great fish. What was Jonah's determination in this feeling? Look at verse 4: “Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.”
In my life of faith, I was very disappointed with me because I wasn’t able to truly repent my sins. I was very discouraged and even depressed because of my failures to obey God’s commands. But God encouraged me to look upon Him again through the word of God “Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple” (2:4). Look at Jonah 2:7 – “While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple.” When Jonah felt that he was expelled from God’s sight and thus was utterly depressed, he remembered the Lord and he prayed to Him. The interesting thing is that Jonah's prayer went up to God. Although Jonah went down to Joppa, went down to the ship (1:3), went down below deck (v. 5), went all the way down to the heart of the seas (2:3) and went down to the roots of the mountains (v. 6), his prayer went up toe Lord (v. 7). This teaches us that our prayers should go up to God even when our spiritual life is going down due to our disobedience. This decision of Jonah reminds me of the words of Psalm 42:5, 11 and 43:5 – “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Our God is the God who gives us suffering. When we disobey God's command, our God gives us suffering as discipline of love. What should we do when we receive such a discipline of God's love? We, like Jonah, must look to God again. In doing so, we will experience God's salvation. Then, like Jonah, we can confess this: "Salvation is from the Lord" (Jonah 2:9).