Sleeper, Arise! and call out to your God!

"...'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)

**I have been profoundly affected by this verse in recent days - the cry of the captain of the ship to Jonah who was asleep in the midst of the storm was a cry of desperation - I almost envision the captain violently shaking, and maybe even slapping Jonah around with one hand while he's grabbed his garment about the throat to pull him out of his slumber with the other....

The mariners had done all they knew to do - and had cried out to their own gods to no avail. They know nothing of Jonah's "god" - only that this man hasn't done his part to try to save the ship.

What is perhaps most profoundly convicting to me is even when these men cry out for salvation from certain death, and Jonah knows precisely what is needful - because while these men may not know so, Jonah CERTAINLY knows so even by his own confession a few verses later that HIS "god" is THE God, and the Maker of the earth AND the sea, this very sea upon which they are tossed and which threatens to claim all of their lives, and yet he still refuses to call upon the Lord! It would seem he would rather drown and take all these men and their ship with him because he would rather run from God's calling on his life to proclaim the Gospel call for repentance.

That is - Jonah himself is refusing to repent.

There is just so much desperation and agony in this, as I meditate on it. As I have occasion to look around me and see so many of my own ship-mates tossed on this sea, desperate for salvation from the storm which threatens to undo them, and they have no concept of what it means to call on the Lord, or even how to do it.

Oh Jonah, where is your compassion! to say nothing of your obedience!

It compells me to my knees, and I pray to God that I would not miss the cry - that a pagan and unbelieving generation would not exhibit more faith than I - that perhaps God would give a thought to them and they would not perish!

My God, let me not be guilty of refusing, myself, to repent, and do not let me run from your call on my life - but rather let me proclaim boldly the Gospel call to turn back to God and receive mercy and forgiveness rather than His just condemnation!

My God, let me love what you love and hate what you hate - let me hate sin, but desperately love those who are as yet imprisoned by it so that I long for their freedom and love your glory.**