Frying Pan Escapes
Have you ever heard the expression, “Out of the frying pan, into the fire?” For one man, that phrase is a bit more meaningful. Police attempted to stop a car after a simple traffic violation near Cleveland, Ohio. After a chase reaching speeds of 90 mph, a driver and passenger bolted from their car and headed for a fence. What they didn’t realize was they had just jumped into the state women’s prison.
That reminds me of a similar story. Jonah received a clear command, and just like a certain motorist from Cleveland, Jonah made the wrong decision. Jonah’s instructions did not come from a police officer, but they were no less clear and direct. In Jonah 1:2, the Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah made his big mistake and got on a ship headed in the opposite direction, to the city of Tarshish. Before long, Jonah was thrown off the ship and spendt the next three days and nights in the belly of a fish! Both of these stories are pretty comical to me. If Jonah had followed God’s orders the first time, he would never have been thrown overboard and eaten by a fish. If the driver had pulled over in the first place, he probably would have driven away with nothing more than a ticket.
We shouldn’t have too much fun at their expense, however. I wonder how many times I’ve behaved like Jonah? Has God ever asked me to do something, but I ran in the opposite direction? I imagine I’m not the only one who has disobeyed God in this way. One lesson we can learn from Jonah is that God wants the best for us and for the people around us. When we turn from Him and act disobediently, we hurt ourselves and the people we influence. We have a choice: we can run blindly, jumping fences into prisons of sin with long lasting consequences for ourselves and the people around us, or we can be obedient to a clear command and fulfill God’s will. Like the citizens of Nineveh, people are lost and looking for truth. Like Jonah, we have an opportunity to share Jesus with them. We have the keys to unlock the prison gates. Will you open the gates?
Any direction we choose to run away from God will eventually end up like this… we can be pious, hedonistic, intellectual, backward, or anything else. The method we use to run will always give way to the direction in determining the course of our lives.
If only we would always understand that God wants the best for us. We jump to conclusions and end up blaming God for any issue that comes our way. When in all actuality, the problem came from a point in our lives when we were not as close to God as we should have been.
Again this proves that God ALWAYS knows best, and He always has our best intrests at heart, even if we don’t agree with His methods.
Great illustration. It seems like the concept that God wants what is best for us is contrary to our nature, making it necessary for us to remind ourselves of it daily.