All aboard...?
For as long as I’ve read the book of Jonah, my focus was on Jonah (the book is titled after him after all). I would love to say I was studying the book when I discovered some of the things I’m about to share, but ministry and adulting just isn’t that glamorous. I was doing what I call a ‘rush job’ (where I desperately plead with God to speak to me minutes before leaving for service because I was held up by other ministerial duties throughout the day) when God pulled my attention to the sailors in the story. For the first time I realized how they suffered as a result of someone else’s bad decisions, all because they allowed him to board their ship.
Pondering upon this, I concluded that some of the tough consequences we have to put up with aren’t even a result of our decisions, but a result of being connected to people who make poor decisions. This calls for us to really make an effort into evaluating who we allow to enter our lives. These men knew very little about Jonah. All they knew was that he was running from God, which they also didn’t pay much attention to. Big mistake. You cannot link up with someone who is adamant on going the opposite direction of God’s instruction and experience peace and calm, just ask Jehoshaphat.
It’s important to know the people we give access to our lives. These guys only realized once the storm had hit that they really didn’t know much about him.
“So they asked him, ‘Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” Jonah 1:8
These are the type of questions we need to ask when we intend to establish a relationship , not what their favourite colour is.
What do you do?
They must have been referring to what Jonah does for a living with this question, but in our context of relationship, it is beyond that. What a person does is an investment of their time, which is a reflection of their perspective and belief. What a person does reflects what is valuable to them. Knowing what a person does teaches you what is important to them, important enough to take up their time which is one of their most valuable resources.
In a way, what a person does also reveals how they think. If a person is in the frequent habit of going shopping with money they don’t really have, you can assume that they think more of the moment than they do of the next day monetarily wise.
Where do you come from?
In the text this refers to the geographic place Jonah is from, but once we bring it into the context of relationships, it refers to the concepts and beliefs that have birthed the person and in which they are rooted. This is important because a person governs their life by what they are rooted in. A Christian who is birthed by God’s Word allows the truths of the Bible to govern their life, even over their own emotions or what everyone else is doing.
It’s important to know a person’s views on, amongst other things, religion and morality when I welcome them aboard the ship of my life because everything about them will be dictated by it. If not, disagreement and discord will characterize the relationship. We tend to avoid these conversations because they can be difficult, but it's better to have them at the beginning than in the thick of the storm.
What is your country? From what people are you?
Home and family bear our identity, prescribing how we act and behave (see 1 John 3:3).
As much as we ask a person’s residence when we meet up, I must care to know where your home is. As Christians, our citizenship is in heaven. We are ambassadors to and foreigners in the world; in it but not of it. Our home is our hope, the reason we keep going when we feel we can’t, the beginning of the end of our lives. Earthly relationships are more worthwhile when we know that we will also spend eternity together. In fact, when we are home-conscious, we handle relationships with care because we don't want to stand in the way of anyone, even ourselves, from making it home.
At some point the sailors had to throw their valuable cargo overboard trying to keep Jonah in the ship. This wasn’t just their clothes and padkos that they threw out, it was valuable goods that they were transporting most probably for trading. Get this: it’s expensive keeping the ‘wrong’ people in your life. It will cost you your resources, your peace, and sometimes, I pray not, even your life. At some point you have to accept that you’d rather lose them than loose anymore of what is valuable to you.
But what happens to them when I let them go, aren’t I being selfish? We only think that because we have over-estimate our role and power in people’s lives. We are not the air they breathe (he might have told you that, but girl he lyin’, he’ll live.) It is not our duty to save people, only God’s. Once the sailors threw Jonah overboard, God made provision that Jonah be saved. Why don’t you trust God to do the same? Anyway, what good was them keeping Jonah in the ship achieving? What God can do with people is way better than what we can ever attempt. It’s a cliché I admit, but relevant nonetheless: Let go and let God.
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