You know Jonah. He's belligerent, skeptical, stubborn, judgemental and well; he's human.
Jonahs' way is the path of struggle and questioning;

Jonah is you and I.

"Jonah, this is God."

"This is who?"

"This is The Lord God; the Almighty; maker of Heaven and earth. I've got a little job for you to do over in Nineveh."

"Why Me?"

"Because you're belligerent, indignant, skeptical and have a judgmental attitude."

"I don't wanna go to Nineveh."

"See what I mean, Jonah? You're belligerent."

"Have you seen that place lately, God? It's full of sin, degradation, poverty, prostitution, idol worship; you name it, they've got it.Besides..."

"....and judgmental, Jonah. That's why you're going. For many people those evils you mentioned are reasons to go to Nineveh, not stay away. You will go and tell them to repent."

"What for? If they repent you're going to forgive them. That's not my style. I say, 'When you mess up, you get burned.' Now, Sodom and Gomorrah; I think you handled that correctly."

"They didn't repent, Jonah."

"You've got a point, God. But I don't want to go five hundred miles to tell a bunch of thugs to repent. It's not fair. They've slaughtered thousands.Why should they get off so easily?"

"They will repent, Jonah."

"I don't want them to repent. You made an error this time, Almighty. Wrong guy."
"I don't make mistakes, Jonah."

"We'll see. I hear there's a Macedonian cruise line offering a nice trip to Tarshish this time of year."

How much of you and me is contained in this persona of Jonah? I know there's a lot of me. If my experience means anything, most of you also harbor a few of these traits. Come journey through the scriptures with Jonah and see how this skeptical prophet asks God the difficult questions.