When Jonah refused God’s call, he knew that God would no longer give him prophetic revelations. If he made up his own prophecies he would be a false prophet. If he stopped prophesying, his rebellion against God would be exposed.

So, his choice was either to obey God or to quit being a prophet and start over in a new place. That is what Jonah decided to do. He “found a ship going to Tarshish” (1:3). If you decide to go to Tarshish, there will always be a ship to get you there! If you decide to disobey God, you will always have the opportunity to do so.

C. H. Spurgeon told of a man with a violent temper. The man would get angry, then he would lose his temper, and then he would throw something. Spurgeon said, “What struck me was not that he got angry, nor that he threw something when he was angry. But that whenever he was angry there was always something at hand to throw.”

Never trust circumstances when you are resisting God’s Word. There will always be opportunities to make your sin and rebellion worse. Thank God that’s not the end of the story. Jonah’s sinful heart was taking him away from God, but God was intent on bringing him back.

Jonah tells us how the ship’s crew became God-centred believers. In their remarkable story, we have one of the clearest pictures of the gospel in the Bible. The gospel is about the storm and the sacrifice—the storm of God’s judgement and the sacrifice by which we can be saved.

Think of a circumstance that gave you an opportunity to disobey God. What was your thinking? Why might you choose differently in the future?

Jonah avoided a God-centred life. He had planned where he wanted to live and what he wanted to do, and when God disrupted his plan, he quit.

If your plan becomes more important than God’s plan, you cannot live a God-centred life. What if God calls you to a different life for the sake of people who need to hear the Gospel? Here is how you can live a God-centred life:

1. Recognise what you are doing now is only for a time
The world wants you to believe that everything is secure and permanent. But your home, your work, and the people you love are yours only for a time. Hold lightly to what you are doing now. It will not be forever.

2. Keep your dreams on the altar of God
God is free at any time to disturb your dreams and to give you a new calling. While God planned for you to be here today, He may have you doing something you never imagined a year from now.

3. Practise making yourself available to God
The more comfortable you are in life, the more difficult it will be for you to obey God’s call. Keep your heart in a place where you can say, “If there’s something else You want me to do, Lord, I’m ready and willing to do it.”

Have you ever asked God if He wants you in cross-cultural ministry? Have you asked how you can be most useful to Him? Or is it all about you? Practise making yourself available to God.

Jonah was already running from God at the beginning of his story, but even after God used him to evangelise an entire city he was still out of sorts with God.

The book of Jonah was likely written later in Jonah’s life as he looked back on his ministry. He tells us, “God used me remarkably, but I spent much of my life avoiding the God I was serving.”

This was a man who spoke the Word of God. His prophecies came true. He walked in the presence of God, spoke the Word of God, and was filled with the Spirit of God.

But then God said, “Arise, go to Nineveh” (1:1, 2). It’s hard for us to grasp how shocking this must have been. The Assyrians were known for their brutality, and Nineveh was described by the prophet Nahum as “the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder—no end to the prey!” (3:1).

Jonah was settled and secure in what he was doing for God, and God said, “Go to Nineveh!” We all have dreams for our families, our finances, our futures. Then God breaks into the plan. Suddenly, your life is not what you thought it would be.

When God stepped into Jonah’s plan, his heart was revealed. Jonah’s self-centredness was hidden under the surface of his successful ministry, but it was exposed when God called him to start something new.

Can you think of a time when God exposed self-centred motives in your own heart?