The story of the Biblical Jonah isn’t strange to most of us. He was the guy who disobeyed God and got swallowed by a fish.
I remember when I was in the children class in church, I was taught not to be disobedient like Jonah so I would not face God’s wrath and I am pretty sure that is what most of us were taught.
But then, there is something about Jonah we are all missing.
Jonah was a close friend of God. If you read the book of Jonah very well, you’d find out Jonah had this close relationship with God. He knew God so well he could predict His next move.
Jonah was asked to go preach to the Ninevites, he refused because he knew what God would do if or when they repented. He knew God was a just God and would not visit the people of Nineveh with destruction.
And then, when Jonah finally obeyed God, what he envisaged was going to happen was what eventually happened and then he threw a tantrum.
Check out what God did in the last chapter of that book. God made efforts to make Jonah recognize and accept His actions. God was concerned about Jonah not getting angry that He was just so merciful!
Imagine such a rapport!
I sure do envy Jonah, not his disobedience though. But then, I want to be so close to God that we would have discussions like the way He did with Jonah.
I want to be able to build a relationship with Him that sometimes, we would just sit and ‘chill’.
I do not just want an Heavenly Father I’d go asking stuffs for all the time, I want a friend whom I can talk to about anything and He would do the same.
This was what Jonah had with God and every Christian should emulate this.