I’m still hanging out in the story of Jonah — I have been for quite some time now, even though I haven’t written much about it. He’s quite an interesting man, one who gives me hope that God can use any of us, even the most reluctant.

Yesterday, we talked about the cost of disobedience. What strikes me, too, is that Jonah was willing to pay that cost. He intentionally disobeyed the call of God, and yet in the first part of chapter 3, we see how he is now intentionally obeying that call.

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” (‭‭Jonah‬ ‭3:3-4‬ ‭NIV, emphasis mine)

Jonah didn’t just stand at the city gates and speak the word to a few outsiders. He walked almost to the center of this mammoth city to deliver the news that would surely get him killed. It wasn’t as if he’d have friends and allies on the day’s journey back out of the city if they didn’t repent. It’s an overused phrase, but Jonah was all in. Literally.

He’d been in the belly of the great fish, and now he was in the belly of the great beast. His life was completely in the hands of the God who had sent him there, and as intentional as he’d been about disobeying before, he was intentional about obeying now.

I don’t know specifically what God has called you to do, but don’t just dabble with it. Don’t be satisfied to dip your toes in the waters of obedience; go all in.

Jonah is an interesting character in the story of God, and I think we can learn something significant from his life. But first, notice all the things that he put between himself and God in an attempt to deny God’s call on his life.

Distance

If Jonah had gone directly from where he received the call of God (Joppa) to the place God called him to (Nineveh), it would have been about 725 miles. Instead, he went the opposite direction toward Tarshish, which was about 3,000 miles from where he was. That’s a lot of distance to put between oneself and God.

Destruction

Because of Jonah’s disobedience, the sailors encountered a violent storm that threatened to break apart their ship. They threw their cargo overboard to try to save themselves and the boat.

Death

Jonah finally told them to throw him overboard so the storm would stop. He was even willing to put his own death between himself and the call of God.

What do we learn from all of this? Simply that disobedience always costs more than obedience.

Don’t put off what God is calling you to do, even if it seems like it will cost you everything. It may, for sure, and yet what we learn from Jonah is that disobedience will always cost more.

Today is the last day of June, and that means the end of the first six months of the year. While technically July 2 will be the halfway point of the year in days, for me, the end of June is halftime, and as I wrote about yesterday, it’s a time to reflect on the first half and prepare for the second half.

I started 2021 with a personal commitment to write and post something on my blog every day and to this point, I’ve done that. Today is the 181st consecutive day of writing and posting, and I’ve learned a few things along the way.

Writing consistently is a multiplier.

I’ve written more words in 6 months than I have over the last 3 years combined, and it isn’t even close. You could add up all the words I’ve written in the last 3 years, multiply them by 2, and still not equal what I’ve produced so far this year. After this post, I’ll have written over 54,000 words in 2021 (54,525 to be exact). That’s the equivalent of about a 200-page book. All from simply committing myself to write something daily.

Writing consistently well is hard

I would never dare take all the 54,000 words that I’ve written and put them in a book because not all of those words are that great. That isn’t self-deprecating, just stark reality. I’m not writing every day because I think that what I write every day is always that good (although if you think so, yay!!!). I’m writing every day as a way to dig down past the muck and find the diamonds. There have been many days when I just didn’t feel like I had anything good to write about, and yet writing anyway opened me up to a thought that I wrote about in following days.

Writing consistently requires material

I wrote about this at the beginning of the year, but it’s worth repeating here. What motivated me to attempt this year of writing was a quote by Seth Godin (a really great thinker who also writes every day). He was asked if he ever gets writer’s block, and he said no because he never gets speaker’s block and writing is just another form of speaking. But as I’ve progressed through the year, I’ve realized that, while I can always say something, it’s good to say something worth hearing. That requires material, and so I’m learning to be a better observer: I read a lot more now that I’m writing more, and I watch people more that I did before. I’m looking for connections between my faith in Jesus and the culture that surrounds me all the time. I want to write things every day that everyday people can relate to.

What happens in the second half of this experiment? I’m glad you asked. I’ll keep writing each day because I have a goal and I want to see it through. I doubt that I’ll be a daily blogger longterm, but I do want to see this through. I truly felt called to this, and I believe with my whole heart that simple obedience produces supernatural outcomes. Only God knows what breakthrough might happen in my writing when I post on December 31, 2021!

I’m also going to add another component to my writing. It’s time to start turning some intentional focus toward crafting the book that God placed on my heart at the end of 2020. I may post some samples of that writing from time to time, but most of that won’t be public yet.

So, here we go! Halftime is over, and it’s time to get back to it. Thanks for being a part of the journey so far, and I sure hope you’ll hang around for the rest of it. The best is yet to come!