Let me warn you; today’s look at Scripture is not a look through rose colored glasses, rather through the grim and dark harsh reality of what our disobedience causes for others. Proceed with caution.
In Jonah 1:12, Jonah has just told his shipmates that he was the cause of the storm and that the seas would return to calm if they would just do this one thing…throw Jonah into the sea. A sea so raging they feared the ship would break, hardly a place for a man to survive. Then we see the compassion of humanity and the struggle for survival, war against each other. The sailors tried hard to spare Jonah’s life, they rowed hard against the storm trying to bring the ship to land. Bystanders to Jonah’s disobedience were now trying with all their might to save this disobedient Christian. Imagine if you will, their emotional turmoil and physical exhaustion they felt going through this circumstance, all because of and for: Jonah’s disobedience.
We lie to ourselves when we justify to ourselves that our private sin does not effect anyone. Jonah’s shipmates showed more compassion for him than he did for them! He caused them to be in a very difficult spot, when it should have been Jonah proclaiming the Good News that he was keeping all to himself. He would not share with the people of Nineveh, nor was he going to willingly share it with the sailors, only to say that his God caused the storm for his sake.
Ouch! Talk about the pains of remorse and guilt when we understand that our disobedience sometimes causes extreme struggles for someone else.
