Jonah

Somedays, I think very seriously about running away. I feel a lot of sympathy for/brotherhood with Jonah from time to time. I mean, here's a guy who doesn't want to go to Nineveh, which is not such a terrible offense in and of itself, except for the fact that God told him to go. And if you look at this situation from the outside, it's very easy to see Jonah as sort of a self-righteous and spoiled child who thinks he knows better than his Parent. It's also always very easy to see this sort of behavior in others. At the same time, I do this sort of thing all the time without ever thinking about how self-righteous I look.

That's the thing about Jonah. From the outside, you think, "What a yutz," but when you're playing the part of Johan, suddenly you do not see it as clearly.

The other thing I love about Jonah is that God basically drags him kicking and screaming to Nineveh via the belly of a whale (gross), and then God's plan works. Then Jonah is just as pissed off as he was when he thought it wasn't going to work. He thought he was going to die, so he didn't want to do it, and then it works, and he decides that he would like to lay down and die.

Even as I write about him, I see that he's ridiculous--the asshole of the Bible. And I am every inch like him. God wants me to do one thing, and I don't want to because it's going to turn out terribly, but as soon as it turns out well, then I'm pouting under my vine bemoaning the fact that I am not dead.

I personally like Jonah. I wouldn't say he's my hero or that I want to aspire to be like him, but I think he's a fairly accurate representation of who we are. We don't want to do what we're supposed to do, and we won't be happy with any result once we are arm wrestled into doing it. I can relate.