God Is Everything

God Is Everything

But as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the Lord flung a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to send them to the bottom!

Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights!

And the Lord God prepared a gourd to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. This eased some of his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the gourd. But God also prepared a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant, so that it soon died and withered away. And as the sun grew hot, God sent a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. "Death is certainly better than this!" he exclaimed. (Jonah 1:4, 17; 4:6-8).

Nothing so much helps the Christian endure the trials of his path as the habit of seeing God in everything! There is no circumstance, be it ever so trivial or ever so commonplace, which may not be regarded as a messenger from God, if only the ear be circumcised to hear, and the mind spiritual to understand the message. If we lose sight of this valuable truth, life, in many instances at least, will be but a dull monotony, presenting nothing beyond the most ordinary circumstances. On the other hand, if we could but remember, as we start each day on our course, that the hand of our Father can be traced in every scene - if we could see in the smallest, as well as in the most weighty circumstances, traces of the divine presence - how full of deep interest would each day's history be found!

The Book of Jonah illustrates this truth in a very marked way. There we learn, what we need so much to remember, that there is nothing ordinary to the Christian; everything is extraordinary. The most commonplace things, the simplest circumstances, exhibit in the history of Jonah, the evidences of divine intervention. To see this instructive feature, it is not needful to enter upon the detailed exposition of the Book of Jonah, we only need to notice one expression, which occurs in it again and again, namely, "The Lord prepared."

In chapter one the Lord sends out a wind into the sea, and this wind had in it a solemn voice for the prophet's ear, had he been wakeful to hear it. Jonah was the one who needed to be taught; for him the messenger was sent forth. The poor pagan mariners, no doubt, had often encountered a storm; to them it was nothing new, nothing special, nothing but what fell to the common lot of seamen; yet it was special and extraordinary for one individual on board, though that one was asleep in the sides of the ship. In vain did the sailors seek to counteract the storm; nothing would avail until the Lord's messenger had reached the ears of him to whom it was sent.

Following Jonah a little further, we perceive another instance of what we may term, "seeing God in everything." He is brought into new circumstances, yet he is not beyond the reach of the messengers of God. The Christian can never find himself in a position in which his Father's voice cannot reach his ear, or his Father's hand meet his view, for His voice can be heard, His hand seen, in everything. Thus when Jonah had been cast forth into the sea, "the Lord prepared a great fish." Here, too, we see that there is nothing ordinary to the child of God. A great fish was nothing uncommon; there are many such in the sea; yet did the Lord prepare one for Jonah, in order that it might be the messenger of God to his soul.

Again, in chapter four, we find the prophet sitting on the east side of the city of Nineveh, in sullenness, and impatience, grieved because the city had not been overthrown, and entreating the Lord to take away his life.  He would seem to have forgotten the lesson learned during his three days' sojourn in the sea, and he therefore needed a fresh message from God - "And the Lord prepared a gourd." This is very instructive. There was surely nothing uncommon in the mere circumstance of a gourd; other men might see a thousand gourds, and, moreover, might sit beneath their shade, and yet see nothing extraordinary in them. But Jonah's gourd exhibited traces of the hand of God, and forms a link - an important link - in the chain of circumstances through which, according to the design of God, the prophet was passing. The gourd now, like the great fish before, though very different in its kind, was the messenger of God to his soul. "So Jonah was exceeding glad for the gourd." He had before longed to depart, but his longing was more the result of impatience and chagrin, than of holy desire to depart and be at rest forever. It was the painfulness of the present, rather than the happiness of the future - which made him wish to be gone.

This is often the case. We are frequently anxious to get away from present pressure; but if the pressure were removed, the longing would cease. If we longed for the coming of of Jesus, and the glory of His blessed presence, circumstances would make no difference - we would then long as ardently to get away from those times of pressure and sorrow. Jonah while he sat beneath the shadow of the gourd, thought not of departing, and the very fact of his being "exceeding glad for the gourd" proved how much he needed that special messenger from the Lord; it served to make manifest the true condition of his soul, when he uttered the words, "Take, I beseech You, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live!" The Lord can make even a gourd the instrument for developing the secrets of the human heart. Truly the Christian can say, God is in everything. The tempest roars, and the voice of God is heard, a gourd springs up in silence, and the hand of God is seen. Yet the gourd was but a link in the chain; for "the Lord prepared a worm,  and this worm trifling as it was when viewed in the light of an instrument, was, nevertheless, as much the divine agent as was the "great wind", or the "great fish". A worm, when used by God, can do wonders; it withered Jonah's gourd, and taught him, as it teaches us, a solemn lesson. True, it was only an insignificant agent, the efficacy of which depended upon its conjunction with others; but this only illustrates the more strikingly the greatness of our Father's mind. He can prepare a worm, and He can prepare a vehement east wind, and make them both, though so unlike, conducive to His great designs.

~C. H. Mackintosh~

(continued with # 2)