Happy Canada Day weekend! For those of us who call Canada home, I think we have so much to be thankful for on Canada Day. Having grown up here, I sometimes take for granted some of the basic benefits that come with living in this nation. But the ability to freely live and thrive here is a significant way that God has blessed so many of us. So remember to say a prayer for Canada, that God would guide our nation to be all that we’ve been called to be.
In thinking about the topic of calling, what comes to mind is the calling and purpose of Lifespring as a church family. A few years ago, we even had this printed on a floor mat – “Love God, Love Others.” But who are our “others?”
I think one book in the Bible answers this question well, the book of Jonah. The story of Jonah is one of the most-loved narratives in the Bible for both kids and adults. It starts off with a call from God to Jonah.
“Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come to my attention.”
Jonah 1:2
But instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah boards a boat to Tarshish to flee from God. God sends a great storm on the sea, and the sailors with Jonah start to panic and pray to their gods. Jonah tells them the reason for the storm, and on Jonah’s advice they throw him into the ocean. The sea is stilled, the sailors’ lives are spared, and they worship God.
We all know the next part of the story – a great fish swallows Jonah, and for three days he is in the belly of the fish. Chapter 2 is Jonah’s cry to the Lord for deliverance, and the fish spits Jonah onto dry land. In chapter 3, God calls Jonah again, and this time he obeys. He travels to the city of Nineveh proclaiming the word that God had told him. Amazingly, the people of Nineveh repent.
But Jonah is disappointed with this outcome. Jonah 4 starts this way,
“But Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, ‘Come on, Lord! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy.'”
Jonah 4:1-2
At the end of the book of Jonah, we see God’s response.
“…can’t I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
Jonah 4:11
God always had in mind to save the people of Nineveh. In the beginning of the book of Jonah, God calls Jonah to be a part of this plan. But Jonah resists, and flees from God. Everything that happens as a result of this prods Jonah to be obedient to God. The storm on the sea, the casting of the lot that fell on Jonah, the great fish – all of these were to press and remind Jonah of God’s will.
All of these things were for the sake of the people of Nineveh, the people that God was calling Jonah to. Personally, Jonah didn’t even like the people of Nineveh. By the end of the book, we never learn if Jonah truly saw things God’s way, and had compassion for the people. Yet all the events in the story of Jonah were for the sake of the Ninevites.
Our purpose is to love God, and love others. The people of Nineveh were the “other” for Jonah. They were people who were not like him. They were people who he didn’t even like. Yet they were the people that God called him to, that God spoke to him about.
So who is the “other” for us? Who are those that God is calling us to today? It doesn’t need to be as big as Jonah, who saved a nation. But perhaps God is calling us in simple ways, maybe to pray for another person, or reach out to them, or serve them in some way. Lifespring, God has a calling on our church, and also a calling for us as individuals. Like Jonah, our calling is for the sake of others, to serve them. I pray that as God calls us to serve others, we would always be responsive to His voice.