God Calls: Overcoming Your Circumstances

Scripture: Jonah 3.1-5, 10; Romans 8.28


I said last week that God speaks to those who will listen. Sometimes God speaks to those who pretend they’re not listening, who don’t want to listen. Jonah was such a man. God’s assignment for Jonah was to go to Nineveh, “that great city” for its wickedness had caught God’s attention. I mean, the implication is, the city was so evil that the stench was wafting up before God. It was becoming unbearable.

God gives the task of notifying the Ninevites of their sin to Jonah. It must have seemed like Mission Impossible to our man. For Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a powerful enemy of Israel. Assyria would later subdue the Northern Kingdom of Israel and threaten Judah as well. Assyria was powerful and ruthless. And Jonah was being commanded to go to its capital and preach against their people. Its like being asked today to fly to Damascus or Riyadh, walk the streets and call Muslim extremists to repentance. Any takers?


Father Mapple, the preacher in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, says God speaks to us in commands because He knows that what he wants of us is difficult. “If we obey God, we must disobey ourselves. And it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.”

And of course, Jonah responds to God’s command by running away.

If we’re honest, we can’t really fault Jonah. Because we’ve all done it. We’ve run away from taking God’s commands seriously. We’ve assessed the situation of listening to God, following the call, acting in faith, and deemed it all too risky, unlikely to succeed.

There’s the Seinfeld episode where Jerry recounts beating his old grade school nemesis Duncan Myer in the 100 yard dash. The rub is, Jerry accidentally got a head start and so beat his rival unfairly. The rival repeatedly challenged Jerry to a rematch but was always rebuffed. Jerry knew that on a level playing field there was no way that he could win. So the answer that he gave Duncan was, “I choose not to run!”

That’s our answer to God’s call more often than we would like to admit. I choose not to run. I choose not to walk. I choose not to go.

Churches are good at saying no to God. Of course, we don’t say it so boldly. We point out many good reasons why we can’t speak to the people of Nineveh. We say we don’t have the time. We say we don’t have the money. We say they won’t listen to us. We have lots of excuses. Sometimes we blame it on the system. You know, we’re too small of a church. Other churches have advantages that we don’t. Or, nobody wants to go to church anymore.

Jim Collins notes that all groups, businesses, organizations have limitations, constraints, and problems. He calls them systemic limitations. But he also points out that any organizations can create their own pocket of greatness in the midst of all these limitations. Then he asks this question:

Do you know what was the most profitable company in America in the last thirty years?

Was it Wal Mart? No. Was it Home Depot? Was it MicroSoft? No. The most profitable company in the last thirty years was SouthWest Airlines. If, thirty years ago, you have bought $10,000 worth of SouthWest stock, you would now be worth $10 million. Think about that! The most profitable company in this time was an airline, an industry known mostly for struggles, incompetence, and bankruptcy. But somehow, while many other airlines could not turn a profit, pointing to fuel costs, insurance, the government, the consumers, as all reasons why they could not succeed, Southwest found a way to create a pocket of greatness.

Sometimes its people who have the most going against them that have the most to teach us. It’s the person who missing an arm who learns to swim. It’s the blind man who learns to read. It starts with taking responsibility for ourselves. It starts with confronting our reality and looking at ourselves honestly and hopefully.

Even though Jonah had his own sin and limitations to confront, it never occurred to him that the wicked people of Nineveh would actually come clean about they’re sin.

In some ways, Nineveh was the Las Vegas of its day. It had every vice that a human being could want. I laugh sometimes when every new generation that comes along Baby Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, thinks they invented some sin that they’re parents never knew about. I don’t think we could shock Sodom or Nineveh or Corinth with anything. The people of Nineveh were fond of saying, “What happens in Nineveh stays in Nineveh.”

Only, that isn’t true is it? Sin never stays put for us. It has a way of seeping out, following us around. It turns up at embarrassing and inconvenient times. Or, if we are really good sin managers, all that we accomplish really, is keeping the sin submerged and festering just beneath the surface of our persons. That’s where it does the most harm.

If we would obey God, we must be honest about our sin and our selves. If we are cowardly, God knows it, we should just say so. If we are in addiction, there is no hope in running and hiding. Freedom lies only in going forward, with eyes wide open.

Remember, to obey God, we must disobey ourselves. That’s hard to do. If it were easy, we would have done it, (because it’s the right and good thing), and God wouldn’t have to command it.

But here’s a bit of good news for us. It’s not as easy to run away from God as some might think. Oh, you can do it initially, but the Hound of Heaven follows the scent. You or me running away just makes God want to try harder and love us more. When we get the first ship out of port, God sees it as a whale of an opportunity!

And as I’ve said before, some people eventually listen to God’s persistent call. Nineveh listened. Though they only got a sermon five words long, they listened like their lives depended upon it. And they were right.

“And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone great and small, put on sackcloth.”

Sackcloth and ashes is the traditional sign of repentance in the Middle and Near East. The whole city repented. They turned around from the direction they were going in. They stopped doing sinful, wicked things, hoping, just hoping that maybe God would change his mind and not destroy them like his prophet said.

And guess what, their hope was not unfounded. God saw their repentance, and He repented. God repented of the evil he was going to do. Nineveh was saved! Nineveh was changed!

Jonah should be ecstatic, right? Jonah should be going around doing seminars called “How to Tackle a Whale of a Problem and Come Out Smelling Like a Prophet”, but he wasn’t. In fact, when Jonah heard the news of Nineveh’s salvation, he got angry. And then he sat down and pouted. This was not what he expected, and frankly, not what he wanted.

Ironically, the only person in this story who didn’t repent was the guy sent preaching repentance.

Jonah had all the outside circumstances going his way, but the most problematic and troubling circumstances remained – the circumstance and condition of his heart.

Jesus said, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe. . .” What ? “The good news.”

Jonah forgot that God’s call is Good News. It’s Good News if we will really give him our hearts obedience, our feet, our hands, yes, but most importantly, our hearts.

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8.28)

Overcoming circumstances and living a life of purpose starts and ends with a heart for God. Are you ready to give Him your heart?