Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
Jonah 1: 1-3
“Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it”[.] I wonder how often God calls us to get up and go to a place we do not want to go. Perhaps we do not want to go because it is scary, made up of people way different than us, or just out of the way. God constantly invites us to go and proclaim the Good News to different parts of our world and we stand in the place of decision as Jonah did. Do we go despite our fear, reservation, or indignancy? Or do we flee the call altogether. My hunch from my own life is that we do both. Lent provides a time for us to take inventory of our lives and evaluate those moments where we clearly heard God tell us to “Go at once to (you fill in the blank)” and what prevented us from going. Calling and going are some of the most important ways we participate in God’s mission here and now. Go or no go, the decision is yours…
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