Running, Then Surrendering

I have been terrified. Petrified even.

For a long time, I kept asking myself the same question. What exactly is this fear about? Why won't I just start writing and do what I have been instructed to do? Then, I had a lightbulb moment. ‘I am Jonah.’ We all can be Jonah.

We read the story of Jonah and are quick to judge him. We wonder why he didn't simply go to Nineveh as God instructed. Why Tarshish? Why run? Why spend all that time trying to avoid God's will only to end up in the belly of a fish and eventually in Nineveh anyway? It all seems so unnecessary when we are reading from the comfort of the other side of the story. (Read the book of Jonah for full account).

But I think there comes a point when we stop looking at Jonah and begin to see ourselves. At least, that was my experience. I realized that no matter how reasonable my excuses sounded, I had simply Jonah'd God. The more I reflected on it, the more I saw myself in his story.

Jonah probably felt inadequate. I certainly did. He may have wondered whether anyone would listen to him. I did too. He may have questioned what exactly he had to offer and why he was being chosen for such an assignment. That sounded very familiar. These were the same thoughts that surfaced when I felt God nudging me back to writing. The instruction itself sounded simple enough, but there was a battle happening internally. I had not written a proper story for public consumption in years. Maybe seven years. The thought of starting again felt uncomfortable, and if I am being honest, a little frightening.

That was when I began to understand something about the story of Jonah that I had never really considered before. We run more often than we think. Not always physically, but in our hearts. We delay. We negotiate. We hide behind excuses that sound logical. Somehow, we convince ourselves that we can outrun purpose or postpone God's plans for our lives.

The interesting thing is that while Jonah experienced the belly of a fish, ours may not look quite the same. Sometimes the belly of the fish is a deep dissatisfaction with what we are doing. Sometimes it is restlessness. Sometimes it is that feeling that something is missing, even when everything around us appears to be going well. Whatever form it takes, it is rarely a pleasant place to be. The older I get, the more I realize that the belly of the fish does not always have to be literal to be uncomfortable.

The shift happened when I stopped fighting. Not because all my fears disappeared, but because I finally settled something in my heart. If this was what God wanted from me, then His will would prevail. Whether I felt qualified or not, whether I had all the answers or not, whether I thought anyone would read what I wrote or not. I chose surrender over resistance. And almost immediately, I felt what I now call the ‘Jonah Effect.’ Today, sophiaukoni.com exists because this was never really my idea. It is here because I chose to stop running. It is here because God was kind enough to keep calling me back to the thing He asked me to do.