Saying No to God
Every time I hear the lyrics by the artist Meat Loaf, “I would do anything for love…But I won’t do that,” I am reminded of the familiar way we talk about obeying God, “I would do anything… except that!” I will never forget a student in my youth group years ago saying she was called by God to go on a mission trip we were planning to Africa. Later, when I noticed that she had not applied for the trip, I asked her about it, and she shared all of the reasons why she felt she should not go. Most of them were very pragmatic: the cost, conflict with other things she wanted to do, not sure if she really wanted to go to Africa, etc. I remember thinking, “But you said God told you to do it!” While it is easy to pick on her, I can relate as well. Many times, I have been tempted to say no to God’s clear invitation for me to do something He asked me to do.
I am sure we all have places we are not particularly excited about going to. It has been my experience that those are sometimes the very locations where He sends us. If the prophet Jonah had one of those places, I would guess it was Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, a nation known for its debauchery and its cruelty, especially to Jews like Jonah. His resistance is recorded clearly in the first few verses of Jonah. “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” (Jonah 1:1–3a ESV) The text goes out its way to say that he “fled.” He literally went the opposite direction of where God was calling him. It would be like God asking you to go to New York, and you went to Seattle. Jonah wanted to avoid Nineveh, so much so that he bought a ticket to sail the entire length of the dangerous Mediterranean Sea—a several-month-long voyage of over 2,000 miles!
Sometimes we work harder to avoid doing what God wants us to do than just doing the work He has called us to! I think we can relate to Jonah; he allowed his fear and maybe even prejudice to dictate his steps. He went down to Joppa, paid his fare, and boarded a ship for Tarshish—the furthest known point in the opposite direction from where God was asking him to go. What I think is amazing is that he thought he could get away with it (and if you know the story, you know that God was not going to allow it). Yet, we buy tickets for our own Tarshish daily. When God prompts us to forgive someone who deeply hurt us, we flee into bitterness. When He calls us to speak the truth or step into a ministry that stretches our comfort zone, we escape into a busy schedule or make excuses about our lack of ability. We tell ourselves that if we put enough distance between us and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the call will fade away. We try to hit the mute button on God…and it does not work out well for us.
The reality Jonah had to learn, and the reality we must accept, is that running from God is impossible. In his disobedience, Jonah had to pay the fare to get on that ship, and running from God always costs us more than we want to pay. It costs us our peace, our security, and our alignment with His divine purpose. More importantly, you can never truly flee from the presence and will of the Lord. Elisabeth Elliot puts it well when she writes, “If you say 'No' to God, you are choosing a path that is bound to lead to a dead end. If you say 'Yes,' you are opening the door to everything God has for you.” In His omniscience, God’s authority is not localized; His sovereignty extends to the highest heavens and the deepest parts of the sea. I love the name Hagar gave God, the One who sees.
Today, if you are running from a clear command or a quiet prompting from God, stop and recognize the exhaustion of the flight, the cost of the flight, and remember that it will not turn out well. The ship to Tarshish never reaches a place where God is absent. Instead of spending your energy trying to escape His voice, turn around. True rest is not found in the geographic escape from duty, but in surrendering to the sovereign will of the Shepherd who loves you too much to let you walk away from Him.
Expectantly,
Shawn
