Jonah 1:1-4;13-16

4But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

We serve a peculiar God. His plan for you is not your plan for you. Even your corrupt plan for you is still in His plan for you. Your sin is means for His self-revelation to you: “I’m everywhere, I know everything, and I’ve got all power.” One songwriter puts it, “You can’t run, you can’t hide, there’s no need to even try.” Your waywardness is still His course for God exposing you, correcting you, and bringing you to repentance. Have you ever been through a hardship that delivered you, prepared you, equipped you and empowered you for forward mobility, and you came out knowing, it was nobody but the Lord? In running, Jonah could not escape God, nor could he escape God’s use of him. Even his running was in the plan and the plot of God.

Jonah was a “down preacher.” Contrary to God’s instructions, he went down to Tarsha, he went down in a ship, he went down in the sides of the ship, he will go down into the belly of a great fish, and he will go down into the deep. And when you disobey God, it can’t take you anywhere but down. Because only God knows how to set you up, wake you up, fix you up, lift you up and grow you up. Thank God you may make down choices, but God has an unthwartable plan for you that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” Yet the paradox is no matter how down your journey may appear, the believer’s life is always upward bound.

Jonah didn’t preach to the pagans, God just allowed his life to get in the way of their lives. Everything and everyone in your life is allowed by God for God’s purposes: the good the bad and the ugly; because, He is the God of the storms, who has promised that all of it is working together for our good. Whatever form the storms or challenges may take, we are reminded by the testimony of scripture that, Abraham’s storm made him the father of the faithful. Joseph’s storm took him to the palace. Moses’ made him a deliverer. David’s storm enthroned him as king. Daniel’s storm got him promoted.

Even Jonah’s disobedience was God’s grace to some pagan men on a boat. They were in a storm. Oh, but it was a saving storm. That storm saved Jonah from his wayward course, brought these pagan men to know Jonah’s God, and put Jonah on course for the salvation of the Ninevites. All this because He’s the God of the storm.

Yuri Solomon holds degrees from Gospel Ministry Outreach Theological Institute and the College of Biblical Studies. He is author of the book Biblical Masculinity. More info @ www.wordtalkonline.org