“Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple’” (Jonah 2:4, ESV).

You know the story of Jonah. The context of this verse is Jonah in the belly of the great fish. God has rescued him, drawing him up from the pit (the literal deep), to literally save his life. He says that God has driven him away from His sight. He’s blaming God that he’s not in God’s presence. Why is that ironic?

“But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3, ESV). Jonah had fled the Lord’s presence. He was trying to get away from God, which is also ironic because you can’t flee God’s presence. (We could refer to Psalm 139:7 here.) He is literally everywhere; it’s part of the definition of who God is.

“Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you” (Psalm 32:9, NKJV).

 

Jonah had to be dragged six feet under before he would draw near. And he does. Instead of running away, he turns back to God. In our original verse, it says, “I shall again look upon your holy temple.” The temple is where God’s presence was among His people. Jonah is looking to God. We don’t want to have to be harnessed with bit and bridle as one without understanding. We want to have understanding that God alone is our help, our refuge, our strength, our hope, our life, our everything. But God is willing to do what it takes to bring us to Himself. Jonah 1:14 says that it pleased God to send the storm. It’s not because He enjoys bringing disaster. It’s because He enjoys mercy and compassion. He enjoys restoring His children safely home to Himself.

The New Living Translation version of the verse doesn’t use the word pleasure. It says that God sent the storm for His own “good reasons.” God doesn’t lash out. He does things on purpose, and His reasons are always good. He was loving Jonah. He was being oh so very good to Jonah. But, may we experience the Lord’s goodness in other ways, because we don’t have to be dragged into God’s presence, but seek His presence, always running to Him, not from Him.