Jonah Week 2

There are always consequences for running from God. We can run from God, but we cannot hide. God is generous with His grace, and thorough with His discipline. God is a loving Father and does not discipline us to pay us back, but to win us back.

In our distress, we can call upon the Lord, just as Jonah did in the belly of the fish. We should let guilt and shame do its job to help fix us so we are not learning the same lessons over and over again.

Running away from God is always running toward something else. We can think of this as idol worship. We set up something else in the place of the true God and run towards it. When we do, the payoff from running is never worth the price, and we end up missing what we once had in the Lord.

God listens to desperate people in desperate situations of their own creation. Sometimes we abuse God's grace because we know we can always go back to Him. However, rebellion always leads to pain and other consequences.

Jonah repented and restored his relationship with the Lord. We can do the same if we have a broken relationship with the Lord.