Severe Mercy

Have you ever tried to run away from God? I would guess we all have from time to time. I appreciate the way pastor and author Tim Keller put it: “When you run away from God, you don’t escape Him; you only encounter Him in His severe mercy.” Severe mercy is a good way to describe the situation Jonah put himself in, when he went the opposite direction from God’s clear call to go to Nineveh. The scripture records this electrified moment of severe mercy. “But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god... But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.” (Jonah 1:4–5 ESV)

One of the most dangerous myths of so-called “secret” sin or personal disobedience is the lie that our choices only affect us. We convince ourselves that if we walk away from God, the fallout is isolated to our own lives. The narrative of Jonah shatters this assumption. When Jonah ran from God, his disobedience invited a violent storm which threatened the lives of an entire crew of sailors. They were just doing their job, and Jonah was running from his responsibilities. The text says the ship "threatened to break up,” and if it had, those shipmates would have been caught in the consequences of Jonah’s rebellion. The experienced mariners were terrified, throwing cargo overboard to lighten the ship and crying out desperately to their pagan gods.

Ironically, while they were pursuing divine intervention to help protect them, Jonah was trying to ignore his own divine intervention by being sound asleep in the hold of the ship. I would guess Jonah’s sleep was not the peaceful rest of a clear conscience; it was the heavy, numbing apathy of a hardened heart. Have you ever noticed that disobedience, especially a pattern of it, numbs our spiritual senses? It makes us blind to the chaos we cause around us. It took a pagan captain to shake the prophet awake and say, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.” (Jonah 1:6, ESV) It is a tragic irony when the world has to remind the believer of their spiritual responsibility. And there was no “perhaps” about it, God knew exactly what was happening on that ship and in Jonah’s hard heart.

The fact is, like Jonah, our personal choices carry weight in our families, workplaces, and even our church. When a parent runs from God, the family experiences the turbulence. When a leader compromises, there are potential casualties all around them. Your storm is rarely just your storm. If you are harboring unconfessed sin or actively resisting God’s call, those around you may be experiencing unnecessary pain and emotional distress because of the “severe mercy” your rebellion has caused.

Thankfully, God loves Jonah too much to let him sleep through his rebellion, and He loves the sailors too much to let them perish for Jonah's silence. The storms, or “severe mercies,” that God sends us are rarely just punishments; they are disruptions designed to break through our spiritual slumber and help us wake up to what He wants to do in and through us. If you feel a shaking in your life today, do not try to sleep through it or ignore it. Wake up, examine your heart, and ask if the turbulence around you is God’s grace trying to bring you back to the joy of obedience.

Expectantly,

Shawn