Lessons from Jonah - Three

This third entry is more a bit of conjecture. Don't take it as any more than that. But I thought it was interesting conjecture.

Look at the account of Jonah preaching in Ninevah.

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them (Jonah 3:4-5).

Doesn't that seem odd? I mean, it appears that Jonah spent a day preaching and Ninevah instantly repented. How instantly? Jonah didn't make it through the city. It was a three-day walk and he only made one-third of it (Jonah 3:3-4). As instantaneous as it comes. No discussion. No questioning. No delay. "Oh, forty days? Not good! We repent!" Done!

The speed of the event caused conjecture among Jewish rabbis. Why so fast? Their conclusion? They believed that the news of the events prior -- Jonah running from God, being swallowed by a fish, being vomited onto the land, and then coming to call for repentance -- reached Ninevah prior to Jonah's arrival. In the story of Israel's travels in the desert after Egypt, there are constant accounts of their reputation preceding them and causing people to either fear them or fight them (or both). The suggestion here, then, would be that the news traveled to Ninevah that this bizarre prophet was coming and, oh, by the way, he had been swallowed by a fish and coughed up on the land. Best listen to him.

Now, as I say, it's conjecture. The text doesn't say it. Neither am I. But I like it. I like it a lot. First, the text doesn't say otherwise, so I'm not contradicting Scripture if I like that notion. Second, it is a handy explanation. But one thing I like about it is ... it's so "God". I mean, isn't that just the kind of thing God does? He uses our failures and traumas and stupidity to forward His efforts. He saved Israel by having Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. Not the first plan I would have come up with. He demonstrated Abraham's faith by ordering him to kill his son. Not an idea that would have occurred to me. God chose Peter as a disciple. I mean, God, seriously, Peter? This is the guy who would promise to die with you in the evening and deny he ever knew you in the morning. Peter? It's just what God does. Choose failures not to merely overcome them, but to use them.

In this scenario, then, God looked at the events, recognized that the prophet He was going to charge with the task would bolt on Him, prepared a fish for an unusual feast (Doesn't that suggest that God prepared this fish well in advance of Jonah's sin with Jonah's sin in mind?), and decided to proceed with this loser of a prophet because it would accomplish exactly His plan.

I see this same process in Election. God didn't choose Jonah because of the good that Jonah would do ... because he wouldn't. He would run. God didn't choose Jonah because he was a great prophet because he wasn't. He was obstinate in taking instruction, in failure, and in success. God didn't choose Jonah because of what Jonah would become because we don't see Jonah becoming anything. God chose Jonah in order that God's purposes might stand. And even so with Election.

Again, it's conjecture. I don't know if that's why Ninevah repented as quickly as it did. But I do know that God works that way. He uses failures, not as a catch up, a workaround, something to overcome and then fix, but as failures He can make use of. Failures like me.