Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Jonah in Me

One day long ago, God's Word came to Jonah, Amittai's son: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer." But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish.  
Jonah 1:1-3 (The Message)

Back in the beginning of the year, my friend Katrina sent me on a spiritual journey. At the time, I admitted that her expectations brought out the Jonah in me. Called to Nineveh, I wanted to go instead to Tarshish.

I'm in a Jonah kind of mood right now. (Or a Moses mood, who after offering up excuse after excuse to God as to why he, Moses, should not ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, finally blurted "Send somebody else!")

Ever since Katrina sent me off on my journey, I have come to view my beliefs and my spirituality in far more personal, real ways. So why am I kicking my heels right now? 

Blame it on Michelle Derusha.

Michelle is the blogger at Graceful, a deftly and beautifully written blog about her life, her faith, and her own journeys. One of the journeys Michelle is on presently is a "shop-not" year.

Shop-not years always intrigue me and I read Michelle's explanation of why she had made that decision. She pointed to a book, The Hole In Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns. What Michelle wrote about that book was intriguing, intriguing enough to track down the book and start reading it last night.

Start reading it? Start absorbing it. Start inhaling it. Start immersing myself in it. It is a powerful book. It is a book that reaches right into my heart and pulls hard.

This is how hard that book has hit me: When I find a quote that moves me, I usually flag it until I can come back to it and copy it into my commonplace book. I am not yet finished with The Hole in Our Gospel and there are so many notes sticking out of it that it looks as if someone shoved a ream of construction paper into the pages.

The Hole in Our Gospel is a book that even when I manage to put it down and turn to the tasks at hand, I am still thinking about the book.

And this is where Jonah comes in. Sundays are my swimming day many weeks, this week being one of them. As I swam earlier today, counting laps, I found myself thinking of the book, and the book's message, and what that message could, might, maybe mean for me. I found myself praying as I counted laps: 3-4, 3-5, What are You asking of me, Lord?, 3-6, 4-1, What am I supposed to do?, 4-2, 4-3, Not now, please, Lord, not now.

As I type these words, it is midafternoon Sunday. Sam and a friend are in the next room, gaming. Warren is in his shop (the garage) cutting steel. Me? I'm wondering whether to go to Nineveh or Tarshish, and I haven't even finished the book yet.

In the end, Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches repentance (so successfully that God spared the city, to Jonah's great anger and disgust). As for me, I suspect in the end I will trudge into my own version of Nineveh, where I will find…

Myself, talking about but not taking action, wondering about but not questing after a more meaningful expression of my faith. My Nineveh is not populated by evildoers so wicked the town is about to be destroyed, but just by me, who I hope is a fairly decent person. But as Stearns make clear in his book, the issue is not whether one is fairly decent or well meaning or a "good Christian." The issue is far greater than that: it is about living with integrity and compassion and justice for the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, the hungriest of the hungry. It is about the meaning of life itself.

Sooner or later, I hope to end up in Nineveh.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great post! I think we all find ourselves a in a bit of a Jonah position from time to time... the struggle between what we want and what we know God is asking. I just hope I dont get eaten by a fish to get snapped back into place :)

Michelle DeRusha said...

Ok first of all, jeesh, I was kind of shocked to see my name in your post, April! But honestly, I am glad Shop Not has inspired you to read The Hole in Our Gospel. That book shook me to the core -- my book looks much the same as yours...with tons of dog-eared pages and underlines throughout. When I read Stearns' assertion that faith needs to be more than belief, I was completely convicted.

My church is doing a small group study of The Hole this fall, and I can't wait to read it again and discuss it with my small group. Plus I'll be blogging about it again as part of a writing project for my church -- who knows what else Stearns and God will prompt in my heart.

I can't wait to hear more about your Ninevah story, April.

Darla said...

Although I'm not (yet?) on a journey about faith I have a strong inclination to get my hands on this book. Your post is very interesting.

Darla

Anonymous said...

I recognize this own dynamic in my life. Fifteen years ago, it was laid on my heart to teach a course in the Bible as Literature. I dreaded doing it as I live in the midst of the Bible belt and was very worried that the course would devolve into theological debate. I dragged my feet about committing to it for several semesters...and then when I finally did, I found that it was the most satisfying way of teaching literature. And once I had taught it, all sorts of doors began to open that had been firmly closed before. Couldn't possible guess what you've been called to do.

Sharon said...

Okay, so now I have to get the book to see what all the rave reviews are about.....is it going to change my life forever??? ;)!

Thanks for pointing me to another great blog April! :)!