Since the lot fell on Jonah, he was forced to admit his game was up. Imagine the shock of the sailors to find out that this man, upon whom the lot fell, was a worshipper of Yahweh – the God of heaven who made the land and the sea. How low Jonah had sunk in his folly, thinking he could run from the will of God. He went down to Joppa, down to the lower recesses of ship and finally suggested that the sailors cast him down into the deep. Instead of glorifying the name of the living God before an entire city, Jonah’s flight resulted in his telling a few sailors that he had been running from this God, implying that He was as limited as their own familiar local deities. Jonah’s final resignation (or at least what he thought would be his final resignation) to cast him into the sea is evidence that he believed God was done with him. Though the mariners rowed hard to try to avoid it, God’s will was inevitably done and Jonah was hurled into the sea. Jonah knew that this was God’s will and became resigned to what he saw was inevitable – his own death and the possibility of an eternity in hell.
Have the circumstances of life brought you down? Has your sin and rebellion brought you to a place where you feel low and depressed, perhaps even at the point of turning away from the faith or giving up on God? Is your soul downcast? Who can say that it has not been the hand of the Lord that has brought you to this place, this with a greater purpose in mind? Perhaps this pit of despair that you have found yourself in is really an evidence of God’s mercy and grace. For those who belong to Christ, even the downward spiral of sin and despair manifests the good intent of God.
