Everyday God. Paula Gooder

one moment − when God wanted to speak to us, to which I referred to at the start of this chapter. There is, in fact, no need to ask the question of what might have happened if I had turned aside at this moment, or had the time to encounter God properly on that occasion. While it is entirely possible that we can and do miss glimmers of God’s presence in our world, the people who lose out when we miss these glimmers are ourselves. The story of Jonah is a story that reminds us that God doesn’t give up all that easily.

      This is a truth that runs as a strand through the many stories of people’s calling to ordination that I have heard during twelve years of teaching in theological colleges. Over and over again, I have heard people describing that un-scratchable itch, or that unavoidable sense of calling that eventually and inexorably brings them to the point of ordination. Of course vocations are not just to ordination but to all aspects of our lives: to marriage or singleness; to having or not having children; to the work we do; to the places we live; to the communities we serve; to the churches in which we worship and the various and varying ministries to which we are called.

      Whatever our vocation, the one marker of genuineness is that the sense of calling will simply not go away. So if you really want to test a vocation, whatever it is to, then fight it. Fight it with all that you have. Be like Jonah and run as far in the opposite direction as fast as you can – and you can be sure that if your calling is true, God will find you there and draw you back.

      Jonah is probably the most reluctant of all reluctant servants of God. He makes Moses’ response to God at the burning bush look positively enthusiastic. One of the reasons I love him so much as a character is that he is in my mind a cross between John McEnroe (he who used to throw his tennis racket to the ground while shouting ‘you cannot be serious!’) and Eeyore, from the Winnie the Pooh stories, who is depressive and never expects anything good anyway. Jonah reminds us powerfully that for some crazy reason, despite the fact that we are often a hindrance rather than a help, God wants to include us in his mission and message of love.