7.29.24

This week we will continue in our series in the book of Jonah. And we will be looking at the rest of chapter 1 on dealing with our fears. Like Jonah, we can often be crippled by the fears of life - and we can run away and try to hide.

The interesting thing about this passage is that God is the one who brings this storm. It was his loving way of getting Jonah’s attention. And what we learn from this is that the storms of life (those that God intentionally brings and those that he allows to happen) are tools that he uses to reveal to us who we really are.

Everybody believes in their comfortable “gods” when life is sailing along smoothly. Whether it’s pursuing money and all it can buy, or relationships and all the joy they bring, or career goals and all the satisfaction we feel, we all have bottom line gods that our hearts are in pursuit of. But when some challenging circumstance comes along that threatens what we most love, those storms begin to reveal that our “gods” are insufficient to bring us all that they promised. They are fragile and inept at delivering on what they offered.

Even religious people have bottom line gods. The only difference is that religious people turn to God to provide it. The typical religious person believes that if they can just live right or obey well enough, then God will have to give them what they really want. And it’s not God.

But when the storms of life come into our lives, we all understand that the things we were placing our hopes in will never be able to withstand its terrors. And it’s in those moments that all hearts begin to turn to the real God. Even the most hardened skeptic will begin to cry out to God when the storm is raging.

In our story, we see these hardened sailors each turning to their own gods. Sailors are not known for their religious zeal. But even rough guys like this are driven to the end of themselves in storms like this one. But what’s interesting here is, when they turn to them, their gods don’t work. And so they come to Jonah - who they knew to be a prophet of God - and asked if maybe his God might be able to stop this storm.

The storms of life are not evidence for skeptics or religious people that God truly exists. Rather, the way we react to life’s storms is evidence from God against the existence of any real skeptics. Deep down we all know that there is a God. We feel the weight of his presence. We are dragged down by the guilt of our failings in his sight. And in the storm, everybody cries out to him.

Today, don’t ask yourself what you believe in God (or want to believe in God) in the smooth sailing of your normal day. Rather, pay attention to deepest reflexes of your heart when the storms come. That’s what is finally driving you into the arms of the real God that you were made for. And when he shows up, run to him!