False Peace in the Storm

It is often said that if someone has peace about a matter, they must be in the will of God.  That is not always true.  All peace in a storm does not translate into the approval of God.

Jonah was on a disobedient ship, going in a different direction from the clear commission of God, and then God sent a storm to stop him.  While everyone else on that ship was restless and sleepless because of that storm, Jonah was somewhere in his little cosy corner below the deck, “fast asleep,” like a baby in the mother’s tender embrace, untouched by the crises that threatened everyone above the deck. While many other passengers and crew had lost precious wares and other cargo to the crisis, Jonah suffered no loss at all, as if his lot had been mystically insured against storms. While the thunders roared like a thousand war drums and the high waves crashed angrily at the ship, bouncing it fiercely in every direction and threatening everyone with a sudden watery grave such that they were all “afraid, and cried EVERY MAN unto his god,” Jonah appeared very untouched, enjoying a peace and quietness that was very disturbing even to the captain of the ship, who was not new to storms at sea (Jonah 1:5).

While it lasted, someone might have called that experience “divine exemption,” “covenant blessing,” or any of those elitist religious terminologies.  However, given what we know now from the full story, can we say that Jonah’s surprising ability to sleep in the midst of such an unmerciful widespread storm meant that God was in support of his presence on that ship, and that he was going in the right direction?  Did the ‘peace’ he enjoyed while nobody else could sleep mean that he was in the will of God?  I can predict your answer.  His moment of sleep in the howling storm was merely a show of the mercy of God for a season, despite his error.  It also shows how, ironically, someone walking in disobedience can be shockingly comfortable, even when their actions, sometimes unknown to them, are causing others great storms and many losses; losses that might not immediately appear connected to them.

All sleep in a storm is not a sign of divine approval. In fact, such sleep hardly lasts.  It ultimately gets to the point where the storm that troubles everyone else forces them rudely awake, terminating their ‘covenant peace.’  Sometimes, when that point is reached, the only option for many resolutions is for the awakened sleeper to be cast into the stormy sea that they roused, out of the hitherto safe ship that they have so long strangely distressed.

Sometimes it takes only storms to awaken some ‘untouchable’ sleepers out of their slumber, and persisting storms to make them call upon their God.  On Jonah’s ship, forced by the storm, everyone suddenly became a ‘prayer warrior,’ and they “cried every man unto his god,” and then they forced Sleepy Jonah himself to “arise, call upon thy God” (vv. 5-6). Some privileged prophets will never know what other passengers suffer until the common storm gets to their sleepy corner below deck.  Some storms are messengers of God.

From The Preacher’s diary,

December 10, 2025.