JONAH

JONAH

Have you ever played “Hide and Seek”? It’s a fun game isn’t it? It’s fun to try and find a really good hiding place and see how long it takes someone to find you. It wouldn’t be very fun, though, if every time you hid somewhere the person looking for you knew exactly where you where, would it?

Our story today is about a man who tried to hide from God, but he wasn’t having any fun. This is how it happened.

One day God told Jonah that he had a special job for him to do. God wanted Jonah to go warn the people of Nineveh that he would destroy them and their city if they didn’t stop sinning. (Pause here and see if any of the children hold up their puppet. They might hold up the happy, scared, or surprised puppet. If a child holds up a puppet, let them explain why they think Jonah might have felt that way.)

Jonah wasn’t happy to hear this. He started to pout. He probably said to himself, “What? God wants me to go to Nineveh? This must be some kind of mistake. Those wicked, evil people, there is no way I’m going to Nineveh. I wouldn’t make it out of that city alive.” (Pause here and see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the scared, sad, or mad puppet. Let the children explain why they think Jonah felt this way.)

Jonah didn’t care about the people of Nineveh and he didn’t want to go tell them what God had said. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah decided that he would go as far away from Nineveh as he could. Maybe he thought that God would forget about the people of Nineveh. Or maybe he thought God would pick somebody else to go and warn the people. In any case, Jonah decided to get as far away from Nineveh as he could and to try to forget about his problem. He got on a ship that was going to the farthest city he could find. Once he got on board, he went to the very bottom of the ship to hide and curled up to take a nap. (Pause to see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the hopeful, tired, scared, and sad puppets. Let the children explain why they think Jonah might have felt this way.)

Soon Jonah found out that he couldn’t hide from God and that God doesn’t forget about anything. God wanted Jonah, and no one else, to go and warn the people of Nineveh.

God knew exactly where Jonah was and he sought him out. God wasn’t happy with Jonah at all. He caused a huge storm to come up. The sailors were afraid that their ship would sink so they started throwing everything they could get their hands on into the sea to lighten up the ship. They all started praying to their Gods to save them, but the storm kept getting worse. Finally when they realized that Jonah wasn’t helping, they went and got him and told him to start praying to his God. But Jonah knew what the problem was, and he knew that there was only one solution. God wouldn’t stop the storm until Jonah obeyed him. So Jonah told the sailors to throw him overboard. As soon as Jonah hit the water the storm quit and all was calm. (Pause to see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the embarrassed, scared, ashamed and sad puppet. Let the children explain why they think Jonah might have felt this way. If a child with an appropriate puppet fails to hold up his puppet, suggest that Jonah might have had the same emotion as his puppet. Jonah might have been embarrassed and ashamed because the sailor found out that he was trying to run away from God.)

Jonah began to sink into the sea, going down farther and farther into the depths. But God didn’t want Jonah to drown; he just wanted Jonah to obey him. God sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah and take him down to the bottom of the sea. He prayed and asked God to forgive him for disobeying him. (Pause to see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the scared, surprised, and sad puppet. Let the children explain why they think Jonah might have felt this way.

Finally, after three days of being in the dark, stinky, belly of the fish, God had the fish come up to the top of the sea and spit Jonah out on the shore. (Pause to see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the embarrassed, surprised, ashamed, scared, hopeful, happy, tired, and mad puppet. Let the children explain why they think Jonah might have felt this way. If a child with an appropriate puppet fails to hold up his puppet, suggest that Jonah might have had the same emotion as his puppet. Jonah may have been embarrassed by the way he looked. He was surprised to be spit out on to the shore, scared because he still had to go to Nineveh, ashamed because he didn’t listen to God in the first place, hopeful that all goes well in Nineveh, tired from being in the belly of the fish for three days, and mad because things didn’t work out the way he wanted them to.)

Then Jonah obeyed God and went and told the people to stop sinning. They believed Jonah, and God saved them. (Pause to see if any of the children hold up their puppets. They may hold up the happy, surprised puppet. Let the children explain why they think Jonah might have felt this way. Don’t tell them if they are right or wrong. If the children know this story well, one of the children may hold up the mad puppet. If he does, let him explain why Jonah was mad. If he does tell the rest of the story.)

You would think that Jonah would have been very happy that the people of Nineveh had listened to him and that God decided not to destroy them and the city, but he wasn’t happy at all. He was angry because they listened to him and God didn’t destroy them. He hated the people in Nineveh and didn’t think they deserved to be saved. But God is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love. (Jonah 4:2).

Jonah sure did cause a lot of trouble for himself didn’t he? You know, when you think about it, we’re not so different from Jonah. We may never run away and hide at the bottom of a ship and get swallowed by a huge fish, but sometimes we do try to hide from God when we are scared, ashamed, embarrassed, or just don’t want to do what he says.

God told Jonah exactly what he wanted him to do, but Jonah disobeyed God and tried to hide from him. God also tells us what to do through the Bible. Have you ever done something wrong and then tried to cover it up or go hide in your room and hope that your mom and dad wouldn’t get to mad when they found out? If you did, you were acting just like Jonah. It doesn’t do any good to hide does it? Sooner or later you have to face up to what you did.

All of us make mistakes and do the wrong things sometimes — some of us more than others. When you disobey or do the wrong thing you are disobeying God just like Jonah did. When you try to cover up what you did or lie about it, or hide it, you are acting just like Jonah. You may be able to hide things from your parents and friends, but you can’t hide them from God. The Bible says, “Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done.”

When you are scared about something, instead of running away and hiding, God wants you to come to him and ask him for strength to face up to your fears. And when you do something wrong, instead of trying to forget about it, or hiding from it, God wants you to tell him about it, and to ask him for forgiveness. The Bible tells us that, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.” 1 John 1:9 So instead of trying to hide your sins from God, confess your sins to him and he will come to you and forgive you.

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