God's Call
4: Disobeying God's Call

Have a think about and share any memories you have from childhood of deliberately disobeying someone in authority over you – particularly parents/guardians, but also maybe teachers etc. Were there consequences and if so what? How did you feel afterwards? How do you think they felt? Etc. etc.

Also, for any who are now parents yourselves maybe you could share an example of when your children have in some way disobeyed you and similarly to above think about and share consequences, feelings, impact on relationships etc.

(Might be that some of above is too personal/difficult to share – that’s fine, but just take some time to think through some of these issues for yourself)

Read Jonah Chapter 1.

1) What was Jonah’s reaction to God calling him to go to Nineveh? Any ideas as to why he reacted that way?
Do you think we can ever ‘escape’ from God’s presence? Is there anywhere we can go/anything we can do that would cause God to just give up on us and let us go?
Have you ever felt God calling you to do something that you’ve really not wanted to do?
Why might we want to disobey God/not do something that we feel he is calling us to?

2) Jonah’s disobedience had a knock on effect to his fellow sea travellers (verse 4 on). How does the idea of God bringing a storm like that fit with an understanding of God as love? Can we explain this contrast?
Do you think God can still react to our disobedience in ways like that? Ways that have consequences both for us and sometimes for others? Are negative consequences sometimes a direct result of God acting in response to our disobedience? Discuss what you think about all this.

3) As you read through verses 8-17 what characteristics do we begin to see in Jonah’s words and actions? How does God respond (Jonah 1:15 & 17, 2:10 and 3:1-2)? What does this say to us today as we think about how to respond to God’s call in our lives?

Read Jonah 3:4-10.

Jonah turned back to God (at this point anyway – probably you won’t have time to look at what happens next in chapter 4!) and God used him. What was the result?
‘Doesn’t matter if we disobey God’s call – we can just repent at some point in the future and he’ll forgive us and use us anyway.’ Discuss.