Jonah

 
















Credit: Free images from acobox.com


We are now in vol. 1, chapter 5 of our Weaver Curriculum.  Jumps off from Abraham obeying God's command to go "to a land which he did not know", to pursue the theme of faithfully obeying God.  The second lesson is Jonah, as an example of the opposite response, not going when God commanded.  This afternoon I sort of retold the story with my Bible open on my lap (while rocking my little one) and interjecting my own "voices" into the story.  Did you know Jonah didn't run away because he was scared??  I thought I did, but you read enough kids' stories and you sort of forget.  The Word clearly says, Jonah clearly says, that he ran away to delay ...so that Ninevah would be wiped out before he got there!!  It got me thinking, was it something like a Jew being sent to the Nazis?  Had he been personally wounded by some act of the wicked Ninevites?  So I started out the Bible lesson time by having each of my olders think of someone or ones that they strongly dislike and/or are afraid of.  Then imagine God telling them to "Go!"  They could suddenly relate to the story at a whole new level.  


God recently began revelating me to a new aspect of faith by thinking of the "confidence" aspect of it.  Where's your confidence?  There's your faith.  If you are self-confident, you trust yourself, you are confident in yourself to achieve what needs doing.  This put a whole new perspective, for me, on those listed in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith.  Their confidence was in God, so obviously they acted on that confidence.  Then, this showed me a whole new side of Jonah.  No wonder God pursued and disciplined him so.  He knew God!!  He really knew God!  He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would show mercy if the Ninevites repented.  He knew that, so he ran, hoping to delay the inevitable.  Wow!!  His confidence was in God.  He just also happened to be an average, weak human.  No fear, tho.  God had all kinds of "appointments" lined up for him.  :)  What a delicious story of God's sovereignty over His creation and His faithful reproofs of those whom He dearly loves!


It amazes me.  I so often go into a lesson not having any idea what direction to take it, what activity to do to bring it alive.  Yet God consistently directs things so that we all learn and grow.  Truly, His eye is on the sparrow.