Do Something

I'm studying Jonah with two different groups of middle school girls. We do one chapter each week. The girls in the before-school-morning group at IHOP are working on not climbing on the chairs at a restaurant, and the evening Bible study is trying really hard to not spend the whole time pointing out every plant and animal in the backyard of the house where we meet. Both groups are spending probably too much time talking about what it'd be like to be inside of a big fish for three days and debate, with great passion, how one would breath, what it would smell like and how exactly he got spit out. Yup. Middle school.

If you have ever worked in youth ministry, you can relate to both of those situations.

I went into leading this book study thinking that it'd be the "same old same old." We'd talk about not running away from God and what it means to do this in different ways on a daily basis. We'd talk about sharing the news of God's grace and how his compassion is never-ending. And we'd conclude with the big finale of how God's love covers even the people we don't like, and we need to learn to see others as God sees them, not following the example of Mr. GrumpyPants (Jonah himself!) at the end of chapter 4.

We made it through Jonah running away from God, the shipwreck and being in the belly of the big fish. Last night, we came to the point where Jonah was wandering around Ninevah telling people about God.

A little background for you: Jonah was an Israelite. He believed in God. God asked him to go tell the Ninevites (a couple hundred thousand people) about God and that they should stop sinning. The Israelites and the Ninevites were not friends. In fact, the Ninevites took it on themselves to make life miserable for the Israelites. But they were still people, and God wanted them to get their act together and to worship and love him. God loves all people, and this included the Ninevites. So Jonah, after running away from the idea for a little while, finally came around to talking to the Ninevites about God.

Jonah's job was simple: Give them a message from God. Jonah was not responsible for what would happen next. If the Ninevites listened to God, Jonah would have been successful. If the Ninevites did nothing, Jonah would have been successful. The outcome didn't matter. Jonah was only held responsible for doing his part. The rest would be up to God and the Ninevites.

This morning, while thinking about taking a few risks in my own life, I realized that the reason I didn't pursue these opportunities is partially because I couldn't control or know the outcome. Duh. OK, so that's not rocket science...but sometimes we're the last one to get the memo on things in our own lives. (Please tell me that I'm not the only one to have ever been standing in these shoes!)

The circumstances for taking these risks could not be better. I could have never dreamed or predicted such a perfect environment or the time to do what is needed to be done. It's so "too good to be true," that if those who are pursuing similar goals discovered the opportunities I have at hand, they'd probably get mad and scream and yell at me for taking so long to thinking about acting on them.

I guess with all that being said, now it's time to do my part and do something. This might sound crazy for the third chapter in Jonah, but please, know that this blog was not meant to be a theological explanation of the text. It's more of a window into the train of thought in my head and the "ah-ha" moment that I had with a cup of coffee, a Sharpie and a journal early this morning.