Jonah: Finding New Life 3 God's Power?

Jonah 1:4-6  

If God is active in the world, why is it such a mess?  One can only conclude that God is not active or that God is a mess.  Or one could accept that unfathomable mystery that God expects and requires human activity to complement and accomplish God’s work.  The struggling sailors prayed to every god they knew but they also lightened the load.  Jonah, running from God, slept in the hold.  He had already decided that he didn’t want any part of God’s plan, was only interested in his own safety, hoped that if he kept his head down he would be ignored and survive. 

If everyone chooses to run and hide, we all go down with the ship. 

Karl Barth, a German theologian writing between the wars, said that he did his theology with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Our prayer is only sincere if it is accompanied by our actions.   Our actions will fizzle and fail if not sustained by prayer. 




 

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