It is somewhat surprising to find a missionary in the Old Testament. It is even more surprising to read his story of resistance to God's will. Most surprising is reading how far God would go to get His word to other people and to minister to His prophet.
The opening verses tell us that "the word of the Lord came to Jonah" telling him to "go to that great city Nineveh and preach" (Jonah 1:1-2). This command is just like the one all followers of Jesus have received: "Go into all the world and preach" (Mark 16:15). Jonah was being sent to another place and people to tell them the message God had for them. The English word "missionary" comes from the Latin and means "one sent" with a message or on a task. It is the exact equivalent of the word "apostle" which comes from the Greek. Some people say that every Christian is a missionary, and perhaps they should be. But technically, we become missionaries when we "go" with our message to some other place or people that is different from us in some way, such as, culture, race, or language. There is some barrier to cross that makes the mission more difficult than doing the same thing at home.
Those barriers can make us reluctant to obey God's clear leading. Our "flesh" never wants to do God's will (Romans 8:7). Jonah, in spite of being God's prophet (2 Kings 14:25), gave in to his natural side. He tried to run away from the Lord (1:3). Tarshish, perhaps in what we now know as Spain, was as far away from Nineveh as possible in the known world of Jonah's day. It is worth noting that verse 3 begins with the word "but." How many of us have responded to God's call with that word? God wants us to do one thing, BUT we are busy doing something else. God reveals to us His concern for another people, BUT our mind comes up with all kinds of reasons, good ones, for doing something else or why it should be someone else. Why don't we realize that those excuses come from the part of our nature that rebels against anything God desires for us?
When God clearly called me to serve as a missionary some thirty years ago, I realized that He had been calling for some time. I had allowed my "flesh" to deafen me to what God was saying. I told myself that God wanted me to pastor in the US. When I was in seminary, I would not attend the chapel services that focused on missions because, I told myself, they did not apply to me. As a pastor, I preached on missions, giving high priority to raising funds and to telling others to go. But even though I believed in missions, I did not see that I was the one who was to go until He broke through my resistance.
When we think of God's command to take the gospel to all peoples of the world, what excuses pop into our minds? What is our "but"? Where do we think those arguments come from? God has told us to go. Some have argued that we don't need a special sense of call to go as missionaries because the Bible already clearly gives us God's will for us to go. It takes a special call to stay.
Let's pray today that we will not be reluctant but eager to do His will whatever it may be.
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