An Evangelist like… Jonah
Jonah is, without doubt, the worst evangelist in the Bible. He’s just so, so bad at spreading the good news about God. It starts with him running away, but when God gets him back on track (via some fish intestines) he puts in as little effort as possible. In a city that takes 3 days to walk through Jonah makes just a one-day trip and shares the most bare-bones version of God’s message: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” He is the definition of the reluctant evangelist!
It is not that Jonah doubts God; he’s experienced God’s goodness first hand in that fishy rescue from drowning. And he has no doubts about God’s character; he straight up tells God that he knows “that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” In fact, the reason why Jonah is so reluctant is his certainty about who God is. Although what he was preaching was more doom and gloom then good news (it’s a very specific version of ‘the end is nigh’), he knows that God can still use that message and his mediocre efforts to save people.
I am often a reluctant evangelist, but I’m not like Jonah: it’s not an understandable hatred of a long-standing enemy which makes me want to run away, it’s fear. Fear of embarrassing myself and therefore God, my general fear of any kind of confrontation, and a fear that I’ll put myself out there and God won’t save them. But sometimes despite my fear and reluctance I’m compelled to say something anyway.
I distinctly remember sitting on a train on the way to a Christian conference, and a woman came into the carriage, checked with me where the train was going and sat opposite me. I thought, “Oh no, I’m going to have to say something. Please don’t make me, Lord.” But I knew I didn’t have an excuse not to, so I carried on the conversation, asked her about where she was going, prayed she would ask me in return, and I got to explain that I was going to this conference and I was a Christian. It was agonising but I did it… Turns out she was also a Christian and we had a lovely chat until we arrived at her station.
I am embarrassingly often a reluctant evangelist… just like Jonah. Sometimes it goes better than I expect, sometimes I crash and burn and wish I hadn’t given in to that holy prompting. But I am encouraged to know that God chose an evangelist like Jonah to save a city, and he has no problem using an evangelist like me.
~Hannah Lewis
