Seeing But Not Understanding

Seeing But Not Understanding

4/28/18

It is frustrating to know that when things are occurring around you that it is for a reason yet the majority of the people involved in the said surroundings do not have a clue about why things are spinning out of control. It then becomes increasingly more difficult to hold our tongues and serve the unknowing while they are focusing their actions on the innocent. We have witnessed this state of concern for millennia and even though we have progressed in many areas we still lag in the wisdom that God has given us to use in such circumstances. It sounds like a broken record but the only way to peace and structured purity again is to turn our hearts back to God and when we do He will allow us to see why the storm is raging around us and why it is there then through His searching of our own hearts can weed out that storm.

How many of you out there can say or would admit to jumping to conclusions to a setting before you had an opportunity to find out exactly what was going on when your eyes saw the setting? I have to admit this fact about myself, for I have done it plenty of times when it came to my daughters and on many other non-family occasions as well. It is easy to draw a quick conclusion to such matters and when we do we usually get things out of sort and then make horrible decisions in lieu of intelligent, rational, and wise thinking. Sometimes the conclusions we draw from immediate sight are hilarious while others force us to come to dire conclusions that serve as harmful resolutions for everyone involved. While some of these conclusions may not change after reasonable sorting out they will be more likely to be acceptable when all information has been presented.

I have noticed that when people are explaining how things occurred and then what they did as a response can be pretty drastic and dramatic at times. It is a common sight to see traumatic settings play out in the Emergency Department and even with our ED being considered a small rural setting we still see our share of these types of hyped conditions. If more than one person is trying to describe what occurred it can become quite funny to watch the competitive spirits come out and try to take command of the story and God forbid if three or more are involved. It is this positioning that many of us take when we are put into such settings and while this type of activity of sharing is a common natural event, sometimes our knowledge of what occurred can become clouded for various reasons. It is okay not to know exactly what is going on all the time but when we do not understand that specific surrounding it is our responsibility to find out why things occurred, in a calm manner of course, and then draw conclusions with the appropriate information in hand. If these conclusions can pinpoint a common cause then the process can be fixed and then society can move along the way in an opportune manner.

This brings us to the point in our Jonah series where the boat is in peril and the lives of the people onboard are striving to live at all costs. Everyone present can see the storm and how fierce its winds and other mechanisms are for the Bible calls the storm a tempest which means it is a violent one by all accounts. The passage we will be using here will be Jonah 1:5-8 and a bunch of information comes out here and once again serves as a pivotal point in Jonah’s disobedience and how it affects the people around him. It is also this not knowing of specific details as to why the storm is present and why the people have no clue as to why it is going on and serving as a warning either. I find it ingenious that God chooses to present a natural storm here for He has a specific reason for doing so. Jonah 1:5 states as follows: “Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man to his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone into the sides of the ship, and he lay, and was fast asleep.” This verse gives us a great deal of information about the storm, maritime laws, the weather, and of course, Jonah and I must say that every single detail about this verse is in present application to us today just as it occurred that day so long ago.

When a storm approaches and catches a boat in its path it is normal for the passengers to become a bit worried for they are not used to such violence out on the water. I understand quite clearly how these people must have felt but there is an added detail here that is unique in that it was the mariners who were afraid. This means that the people or crew of the ship was frightened with how the storm developed and how violent it was growing. There were no modern-day navigation systems present so all they had was their eyes and keen senses in order to steer clear of storms and other obstacles, but this storm was of a different origin and was directed squarely on their placement. The knowledge of maritime laws is a necessity when on the water and all emergency procedures must be in the forefront of sailors’ minds when at sea and from all indications the storm was tossing the boat around enough that the weight of the boat was becoming a hindrance to their survival so lesser important items were thrown overboard to lighten the ship. Even though they probably had been through many storms before this storm was a bit different, but the mariners kept the playbook intact and followed it as protocol demanded. 

An interesting point occurs in this verse where it states that “every man cried to his god”.  Now, all of us are human and have fears that we may have to face at some point in time.  We all have thought about those moments and how we would react if they ever came to fruition, and the storm that these men faced evidently was bad enough that they began to call upon their gods for help and salvation.  The interesting point here is that there is no mention of Jehovah God from these men but the deities that they called upon were still important enough to their lives that they cried out for their help.  The men had no clue of who to actually call upon for help and along with not understanding why the storm was upon them, were totally clueless and sitting (sinking) ducks and truly at the mercy of God.  What the did not know is that God was not going to let them all die but that God was trying His best to wake Jonah up, both in reality and to what he was supposed to do, yet the men in the ship were bystanders to this Divine act.  While noble enough to pray to a belief this action does not address the root of the problem since false gods can only represent a superficial understanding of impunity instead of dealing with the root of the problem.

The second portion of Jonah 1:5 gives us a picture of what was going through Jonah’s mind at the time that the ship was being torn apart, nothing!  We find that Jonah was down in the bottom of the ship fast asleep and had no guilt-ridden or laden conscience what-so-ever.  I know that it has been said that some people can sleep through tornados and not be woke up but it is hard for me to figure out how one could sleep through a violent storm especially when the boat was being shaken as such as it was.  At the very least one would be awake and trying to figure out what was going on but not in this case, Jonah was at peace with what choice he had made and was not even concerned that what was going on to his carrier was the result of his actions or in this case non-action.  In addition, when this type of setting occurs it is common point that everyone on board pulls out the stops and helps the crew do their jobs, because, in the end, it is the in the best interest of everyone to do what they can because if the ship goes down everyone in the confines goes down with it.  This portion of the verse also gives us a picture that Jonah did not need God in order to live and that his will was more important than what God wanted for his life; does this sound like anything we have heard today?

Jonah 1:6 states as follows: “So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”  The diversity of people was great enough back during this time that everyone was allowed to think for themselves when it came time for their religious beliefs which meant that there were a great many people that did not believe in Jehovah God.  Plus, when a person gets singled out by the captain of a ship for not participating in what everyone else is doing and supposed to do it cannot be a good sign.  When God has given us a responsibility to complete and has entrusted us with gifts in order to be an example to others then we turn around and ignore or unwisely follow the advice He gives us to distribute such truth, we will have to reap such warnings and then judgments if we do not do what is expected of us.  It is this position that Jonah was in – both on the boat and in his sleeping status – that has defined the storm around them and while the actions and beliefs of the mariners might have been wrong, it is still Jonah’s responsibility to make things correct and to tell them the truth, both on the level of why the storm was present and that God wanted them to repent as well.  It is THIS picture that is painted for us way back in the Old Testament that we are currently witnessing unfolding today.

Things were so bad that the crew of the boat was casting lots to figure out how things became so bad and who was responsible for their current situation.  I am sure that this process of lot casting involved much blame and storytelling than any human could imagine saying in order to save their hide for that is how humans operate.  But after all of the reasoning and arguing were completed the only one that did not have a true verbal “alibi” was Jonah.  The actions of the mariners are quite common and should not come as any surprise especially after the words they proclaim in the first portion of verse 5 when they were all crying to their own deity and then finding or seeing any resolution to their situation.  They were on the path that they believed would save them but in truth, they were not even coming close to the root and reality of what was going on around them.

It is this example of Jonah that should hit right in our gut and also send an arrow through our heart because we are the epitome of this verse being played out today.  Even though we are in the boat together inside the confines of this nation, Christians have done a wonderful job of being comfortable with themselves that we do not care about what is going on around us.  We try and do our best to ignore the storms (warnings) that are around us, play them off as environmental shifts or “days of the age” complications and tend to our pews inside the church building.  Sitting in our church pews, whether it be literally inside a church building or having that mentality within our hearts, is the EXACT same thing as Jonah was doing inside the boat being asleep.  When aroused Jonah was not surprised at the storm around the ship which means he knew that conditions were bad and that from the crew’s reaction were becoming worse, yet he did nothing but make a lousy statement which made the crew totally upset – another state in which the church is portraying today and which will be written about shortly.

One of the greatest lies that Christians have bought into over the centuries is that it is okay to be divided in faith through personal feelings and interpretations of God and His Word.  The mariners in the boat give us a good example of denominations and how they operate in our lives for even though each one prayed to their own god and deity each one at the same time was not unified in worship and in prayer.  It is common for these types of divisions to recognize the one that is out of place or is doing something different than the remaining about like the old Sesame Street game I used to watch where they placed four people in squares but one of them was not doing what the others were and it was my job to pick the one out that was doing their own thing.  The one person who had the opportunity to shut things down correctly by recognizing and then taking the authority given to him kept quiet until he was prodded out, a continuation of the disobedience process that Jonah began as soon as God told him what to do, where to go and what to say when he got there.

While Jonah did his own thing we are following in those footsteps today and all the while the storms (warnings) increase and gain strength around us.  What is so ironic about this entire passage of Scripture is that through the actions of the Church we are helping the mariners lighten the load from the ship instead of standing up and taking authority over the root of the problems at hand.  Yeah, we are “doing a bit more” than Jonah did, but our actions are in the opposite direction of what God wants us to do, and just being another representative of Jonah instead.  Jonah knew why the storm was about the ship and he knew that it would be some type of similar destruction of Nineveh as well but he kept silent and had no intentions of repenting and making things right before God, therefore, not making thing right before his fellow shipmates either, only fulfilling his own punched ticket to the other side of the sea.

There is no way possible that we cannot see and know the storms that are around us and it is impossible to not know the reasons WHY those storms are gaining strength and in number either.  So, why isn’t the Church (YOU!) doing something about it so that our lives can be at peace once again?  Why are we throwing things out of the boat instead of focusing on the root of the storms?  It is obvious that we have not a repentant heart nor do we even want to repent and only cry out to our selfish earthly gods for help.  Something to think about for a while and that is this: if we are not willing to repent do we not think that God sees this condition of our heart and do nothing about it?  God cannot sit back and just watch His children foolishly perish, He will grab our attention somehow if necessary, but why do we have to have a whale come swallow us up in order for our spiritual eyes to be opened?  Wake up, now, Church and calm the storms around us before we have to see the water around us encroach upon our lands.  We have been personally taught for decades the truth and how to calm the storms around us, what are we waiting for?

DLB