Scripture: The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness has come before Me. 3Jonah, however, started out to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s service. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went aboard to sail with the others to Tarshish, away from the service of the Lord.
Observation: The Jewish Study Bible makes a couple of interesting observations about these texts:
1. Jonah found a ship “coming from Tarshish” rather than “going to Tarshish,” as usually translated. 2. Many scholars accept the translation “he paid the fare” but there is a good reason to prefer “he paid its hire” (that is, he hired the ship and its sailors). In other words, he was “lucky” to find a ship just coming to port and hastened so much that he hired everyone so as to leave for the sea on the spot.
Application: There seems to be this human tendency to want to do the opposite of what God wants us to do. When God instructed Adam and Eve to offer animal sacrifices as a lesson and as a promise of the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, Cain offered the fruit of the land instead. When God told the Israelites shortly after leaving Egypt to go in and take over the land He was giving them, they told Him they would not go in because they were afraid of the giants there. So then God told them they would not go in for forty years and instead they tried to go in and were routed by the people living there.
It seems as if in dating and marriage people many continue with this rebellious attitude. God already has certain guidelines, such as “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). And yet hundred upon hundreds totally disregard His guidance and enter into such relationships only to find themselves disillusioned, frustrated, alone, and often divorced.
It is often the same case in marriage. When the romantic feelings seem absent from their relationship many want to flee back to the single life or worse into the arms of somebody else. I often hear words such as “Don’t I have the right to be happy?” or “I made a mistake marrying hi/her.” If, however, God has given you your spouse as His mission to you, it is no mistake and we can abandon our ministry to them. It is interesting that Jonah received a command from God to go “at once to Nineveh,” and instead he at once went the opposite direction.
Once you have married a person, and are having some conflict, challenges, or difficulties in your relationship, instead of thinking of leaving, answer God’s call to help prepare your spouse for the soon second coming of Jesus (Eph. 5:25-26), don’t run away from God’s service, fulfill your God-given duties, do it joyfully and lovingly (1 Cor 13), and He will reward your efforts with a better relationship or at the very least with the clear conscience of having done all for Him as He asked.
A Prayer You May Say: Father, at times we have taken our marriage as a convenient estate in life instead as a relationship which reflects that which we should have with You. Bless our marriage, and help me to be to my spouse the helpmeet, their sanctifier You have called me to be.
Used by permission of Adventist Family Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
