GOOD NEWS for RUNNERS

 

March 11, 2025

This Weeks Theme Verse

Proverbs 3:5-6

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to Him

and He will make your paths straight.”

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Jonah 3:1-10

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

 

I wonder if you ever avoided something you knew you needed to do, perhaps because of fear or that “something” just felt uncomfortable? Jonah resisted God’s “something”, in his case it was God’s call.  Jonah’s response was to attempt to run away from this call. The story of Jonah, when generally told often focuses on his resistance to God’s purposes. While Jonah’s response is important. I believe the focus of the book is not Jonah, but God.

What I notice, and what I believe we all need to remember is that God didn’t give up on Jonah, even though he tried to run from God’s call. God continued to engage Jonah. God didn’t turn away from Jonah, no, God gave Jonah another chance. That’s a beautiful truth about our God. God in his love and grace does not abandon us nor his purposes for us. 

I don’t know about you but there is a lot of “Jonah” in me. I am a “runner.” Thanks be to God that he does not give up on us easily, rather God works patiently around us and in us by his spirit to accomplish his purposes. So, the searching question for us today might just be: “What if God is inviting you to stop running and trust that He’ll give you the strength to follow where He leads?”

So, Jonah resisted God’s call to preach repentance to Nineveh, yet he eventually surrendered and was an eyewitness to God’s mercy to Nineveh. That is what God can do through a life surrendered to him. Surrender means trusting that God’s plans are better than our own and sometimes the path is very unexpected.

What is one thing God may be calling you to do that you’ve been resisting?

Let us pray for courage and strength to surrender to God’s good plan and take the first step today.

“Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God!

Let your good Spirit lead me

on level ground!”

                                 Psalm 143:10