A Surprising God

Do you like surprises? My instinctive response is always yes. But then I wonder, Wait a minute, what kind of surprise are we talking about?

When I was 18 months old, my family’s motorized canoe capsized in a tea-colored New Guinea river full of crocodiles. We were fortunate to all survive.ⁱⁱⁱ My brother heard a rustling sound in his bedroom one night in that same jungle. Searching the small room with his flashlight, he found an eight-foot python about to make a meal of our newborn kittens. The snake had carried them down the hall from the pantry one by one and was covering them with saliva in preparation for a feast. Those aren’t the sort of surprises we welcome! On the other hand, most of us appreciate an impromptu birthday party, word of a new grandchild on the way, or news that someone has unexpectedly included us in their will.

The Pull of Predictability

While we may occasionally enjoy a good surprise, a key feature of human nature is the powerful drive to predict and control outcomes: our environment, health, schedule, finances, food (That’s not medium rare!), and even the weather (Will it rain this afternoon? How long and how hard?). Our whole worldview is wrapped around the notion of anticipating and manipulating our circumstances. To a point, this is a natural, God-given capacity and responsibility to “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). But, as we see in Eden, we are always in danger of trying to usurp God’s role by taking control over things that are rightfully His alone.

In reality, it’s almost always in unexpected situations that we learn the most about God and ourselves. When life follows my plans and meets my expectations, I may enjoy feeling secure and relaxed, but I’m probably not growing. Perhaps that’s one reason why God has a beautiful, unnerving, exhilarating, and sometimes frustrating way of surprising us, again and again, with His superior (but not necessarily comfortable) plan. While God is consistent in His character, from a human standpoint, He often strikes us as unpredictable in His methods. Words often attributed to Charles West sum it up well: “We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.”  

All of us can point to game-changing events and conversations that have shaped our lives. As a missionary kid, I contracted a bad case of hepatitis in seventh grade and missed the whole school year. While difficult and not what I would have chosen, that year turned out to be spiritually formative for me. Then, after tenth grade, our family moved from Canada to California. The transition affected the entire course of my life. A couple of years later, when I was a senior in a Pasadena high school, my father returned home from a ministry trip and announced out of the blue, “Steve, I met a young lady that I think would be perfect for you.” And sure enough, I married that young lady four years later! God has almost certainly introduced unexpected inflection points in your journey as well. He is, after all, the master of surprise.  

A Book of Surprises

God is the most creative Person in the universe, so it makes sense that He has packed the Bible full of surprises. It’s an astonishing book from cover to cover. Nearly every page would shock us if it weren’t so familiar. Scripture contains so many unexpected events and ideas that some readers relegate it to the genre of myth and fable. A global deluge decimates the earth, except for one man and his family. Fortunately, they just spent 50 years building a big boat to save themselves and the planet’s animal life. Hundreds of thousands of slaves escape on a 40-year journey through the desert, plundering their oppressors on their way out of town after a series of nation-crippling plagues. A shepherd poet kills a giant with a slingshot and becomes king. Daniel gets a decent night’s sleep in a pit full of hungry lions. A peasant girl named Esther becomes queen of Persia while the prime minister is hung on the gallows he prepared for her cousin.  

Jesus’s birth is a huge surprise to almost everyone, including His own mother. Virtually everything He says surprises His listeners. So does His death, even though He repeatedly predicted it. Then Jesus shocks His followers (as well as the guards and religious authorities) by rising from the dead. I expect His second coming to also be a big surprise, even for those of us anticipating it. And these are just a few examples among hundreds.

Considering the Bible’s countless surprises, I propose a new field of study— “surprisology.” And, while we’re at it, let’s add a new name for God to our lexicon: “God the Surpriser.” As we study His Word, let’s ask the key question, “What things surprise me, or should surprise me, in this text?” Our wonder or dismay at God’s actions and self-revelation in Scripture can help us identify gaps in our understanding of His nature and purposes.

When I was a child, my family had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. We had to wait until morning for the rest. My brothers would instinctively go for the larger gifts, but I soon learned to take my chances on the smaller packages. They often contained the best presents. One year, I opened a pocket-sized gift to find a solar-powered calculator. Its few basic functions were advanced technology at the time. I was amazed at all the technological wizardry lying in the palm of my hand. The book of Jonah is just like that. In a Bible full of thousands of surprises, Jonah stands out as a small package with some especially consequential insights for God’s people:

Life for Jonah [is] a series of disconcerting surprises and frustrations. He tries to escape from God and is trapped. He then gives up, accepts the inevitability of perishing, and is saved. He obeys when given a second chance, and is frustratingly, embarrassingly successful.^iv

I want to explore four key surprises Jonah encountered as he ventured reluctantly into the heart of God. I think of these as four lessons God used to draw Jonah into a deeper awareness of His purposes and a greater participation in His mission. Before plunging into the drama, let’s set the stage.

Jonah Before the Whale

If you aren’t familiar with the story of “Jonah and the whale,” it only takes about ten minutes to read. The book begins in Israel during a time of prosperity^v and apostasy, which frequently go together. Seasons of prosperity often represent a greater threat to our spiritual vitality than seasons of hardship. Jonah’s adventures take place long after the division of the nation of Israel into two kingdoms, most likely during the reign of Jeroboam II (782-753 B.C.).^vi Decades later, the Assyrian army will take the northern kingdom into captivity. Jonah is from Gath Hepher (2 Kings 14:25), just north of Nazareth, Jesus’s hometown. The Pharisees must have forgotten about him when they claimed no prophet had come from Galilee (John 7:52).^vii  

Jonah is first mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25, where he prophesies that God will graciously restore the land to Israel, even though Jeroboam II has acted wickedly. Perhaps that incident is an example to Jonah of God’s graciousness to people who don’t deserve it.^viii Either way, Jonah experiences the best of prophethood: God gives him a positive message for Israel and fulfills it dramatically in short order. It’s possible Jonah became a folk hero as a result. After all, who doesn’t like a prophet who predicts good fortune?

But then, suddenly, Jonah’s life takes an unexpected turn. Other prophets had delivered oracles against foreign nations and spent time outside their homelands. But Jonah has the unwelcome distinction of being the first—and only—prophet of Israel specifically sent abroad to preach directly to a distant country.^ix And not just any country. To Assyria. Israel’s archenemy.  

The immorality and violence of the Assyrian empire has reached a red-alert level, and God is sending Jonah to one of their leading cities, Nineveh, to deliver an ultimatum. No more happy, comforting messages of victory for the home team. From a human point of view, the Ninevites will most likely reject Jonah’s message and kill the messenger. After all, the story is set in an era when human rights are not prioritized. Life is cheap, and “free speech” isn’t so free, especially on enemy territory. Alternatively, Nineveh could accept the message and be spared from destruction. Neither option is attractive to Jonah.

A Promise of Astounding Proportions

To appreciate God’s message to the Ninevites and Jonah’s reaction to it, we need to understand God’s long-term plan and His intended role for Israel in their interactions with neighboring cultures. We find the key right where we would expect it, back in the “beginning.” Genesis chapters 1-11 function as a vital introduction to the Bible. They deal with the world as a whole—from its creation and fall, the growth of the population and of evil, and God’s judgment in the flood. Then, a similar cycle starts with Noah’s descendants. “The earth” is a frequent refrain in these opening chapters. Genesis 10 records a list of 70 nations, symbolizing totality or completeness, descending from Noah’s three sons and migrating to Africa, Europe, and Asia. Genesis 11 further describes the proliferation of peoples and languages following the construction of Babel.

The stage is set. The dilemma is clear. The main storyline of the Bible (God’s solution for the intractable problem of sin and mankind’s lostness) gets underway in chapter 12. Abram is, presumably, minding his own business as a middle-class suburbanite living in the Mesopotamian metropolis of Ur. Suddenly, God interrupts his routine with a radical call and a promise. We refer to this promise as the Abrahamic Covenant.

God’s recorded conversation with Abram is short, just three verses long. And it is one-way, with God speaking to Abram. Yet this brief declaration stands among the most important surprises of all time. It is arguably the key to understanding all subsequent redemptive history. God launches Abram away from his home into life as a nomad in search of a homeland, declaring in Genesis 12:2-3,  

I will make you into a great nation,  
and I will bless you;  
I will make your name great, 
and you will be a blessing.  
I will bless those who bless you,  
and whoever curses you I will curse;  
and all peoples on earth  
will be blessed through you.  

With this promise, God has bound Himself to a course of action that, over time, will have a world-changing impact. He even changes Abram’s name to Abraham to reflect the magnitude of the promise. “Abram” means exalted father. “Abraham” means father of a multitude. Later, God describes this multitude as uncountable as the stars, the sand, and the dust (Genesis 13:16, 22:17).  

The idea that God would present Himself as a source of blessing to Abraham isn’t particularly surprising at first glance. Even in Abraham’s day, everyone curried the favor of his or her god, usually through sacrifices. People didn’t think about having a personal relationship with a deity in any wholesome sense. The gods were capricious and didn’t care about people as individuals. To the extent that they did, it was a cause for concern, not comfort. But here, God is not talking exclusively about ordinary blessings like rain, health, and safety. As we learn later in passages like Galatians 3:8, God is announcing, in advance, a vast array of benefits associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ and citizenship in His kingdom. Time will reveal a lot more to these words than Abraham could have imagined at the time.

Consider some of the other surprises embedded in this three-verse conversation:

• God takes the initiative, not Abraham. God is not responding to sacrifices or some kind of human request. He invades Abraham’s world uninvited.  
• God’s promises are explicit, detailed, and concrete. God promises Abraham genetic descendants, a nation, a homeland, and a purpose outside himself.  
• God is calling Abraham out of an idolatrous family and culture into a radical monotheism (see Joshua 24:2 and Genesis 31:19).
• God is initiating a covenant relationship, not just a command, idea, or aspiration. The Creator voluntarily binds Himself with an unbreakable oath. The solemnity of this oath is reinforced later in Scripture (Hebrews 6:13-20).
• God has the whole world in mind when making His covenant with Abraham. No other god ever initiated a plan encompassing the entire planet. Gods were territorial. People negotiated personal and regional arrangements with them, not visions of global proportions.
• The scope of the promise is breathtaking—way beyond just a good harvest or a healthy baby. It extends to the ends of the earth, and its fulfillment will span millennia, setting the stage for eternity. This plan involves thousands of years and billions of people (Isaiah 11:9-10).
• The promise requires a faith response in practical terms. Abraham has to get up, collect his wife and a few relatives, and start a journey.  

Essentially, God tells Abraham, “I want to bless you beyond your wildest dreams.” But He doesn’t stop there. At best, any other god would say, “I will bless you and curse your enemies,” and there’s certainly an element of that. Those who curse Abraham will find that their curses boomerang back on themselves. But God adds a breathtaking assertion, “All the nations on earth will be blessed through you.” Abraham and his descendants are being called for a very special purpose. They are to be a conduit of God’s saving power for the world. God has not forgotten “the earth” of the prior 11 chapters of Genesis. On the contrary, He is launching a long-term, costly initiative to save the world. Abraham’s descendants, the nation of Israel, will inherit a multi-layered blessing and responsibility, including descendants, a homeland, a reputation, custodianship of God’s self-revelation, and an identity as God’s holy people. The purpose of all this is to display to the nations God’s glory, power, and saving grace (Exodus 19:5-6). Israel is to be a “kingdom of priests” through whom the world’s Messiah will someday come. They are to stand in the gap on behalf of all the nations. In Jonah’s day, more than a thousand years after the Abrahamic Covenant, those nations include Assyria.

A Nation of Recalcitrant Priests

At times throughout her history, Israel fulfilled her role as a channel of blessing to the nations. The effect was astounding. Think of the Psalms, sung first by Israel and now used in worship by hundreds of millions worldwide. Israel’s Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and their “golden age” during the reigns of King David and King Solomon were a testimony to surrounding nations. Solomon’s prayer during the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8:41-43) is a classic example:

As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name—for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.  

Or consider the queen of Sheba witnessing Solomon’s majesty and recognizing the Lord as the source of his wealth and wisdom (1 Kings 10:6-9). These and other bright spots are highlighted in the pages of Scripture, but they are relatively rare over the long span of Israel’s history.  

The Jewish people were generally much more interested in the “top line” of the Abrahamic Covenant (“I will bless you”) than they were in the “bottom line” (“All peoples on earth will be blessed through you”). For generations, they failed to honor the Lord, to keep the Sabbath, and to live righteously as a testimony to the nations around them. God’s patience eventually ran out, and both Israel and Judah were brutally conquered and carried away into exile. God described His anger and heartbreak through the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:17-21):

[W]hen the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. … So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered through the countries. … And wherever they went among the nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, ‘These are the Lord’s people, and yet they had to leave his land.’ I had concern for my holy name, which the people of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone.  

The story of Jonah is a microcosm of Israel’s reluctance to embrace their priestly, intercessory role. Instead of being an example of righteousness, they had to be disciplined by the nations they were intended to bless. One Bible scholar explains the relationship between Jonah and the Abrahamic Covenant this way:

The Lord’s love for the souls of all people was supposed to be mediated through Israel, God’s elect and covenant nation. Through Israel the blessing of His compassion was to be preached to the nations (Isaiah 49:3). The Book of Jonah was a reminder to Israel of her missionary purpose. ... Though Israel was unfaithful in its missionary task, God was faithful in causing His love to be proclaimed. … Jonah’s spiritual hardness illustrated and rebuked Israel’s callousness.^x  

Israel had become a spiritually stagnant pond rather than a life-giving river. In failing to bless others, they forfeited much of their own blessing. It’s a principle of God’s kingdom. Those who refuse to share what they’ve received end up losing what they have.

Embracing the God of Surprises

Have you thought much about the fact that God’s promise to Abraham is still in process, and your life is a part of its fulfillment? Many individuals and communities today have yet to hear about the blessing of God’s provision for their sins through Jesus. More than 40 percent of the world’s population doesn’t know that a descendant of Abraham made a way for them to be reconciled to their Creator.^xi  

Jonah isn’t a story about a big fish. It can’t be. The fish is only mentioned in three verses. I don’t think it’s fundamentally even a story about Jonah. This book is a message about God and His heart, which contrasts with the lives and attitudes of His people. Through Jonah’s story, God reveals what He thinks about people who don’t know Him, who He might use to change that, the response of the world to God’s message of mercy, and the impact it can have on the messenger.  

It’s an important message not just for Jonah’s contemporaries in Israel but also for us today. We may consider ourselves quite different from Jonah and more sophisticated than the people to whom the story was initially directed. But are we really that different? We, too, may be out of alignment in our values and priorities. In a sense, Jonah’s experience is more for our benefit than for his. Through his recorded story, millions of people across the ages have had an opportunity to wrestle with uncomfortable truths regarding God’s character. They have been faced with difficult choices on how to respond. Let’s listen to Jonah’s testimony with humility.

Not everyone wants to be surprised, even by God. Many of us are quite content to live within the confines of what we know and think we can control. But if the Holy Spirit is drawing you toward the mysterious plan that He is carefully unfolding, then this little book is for you. Join me in praying with child-like faith and maybe a healthy dose of trepidation, “Lord, surprise me today with Your superior plan.”

Discussion Questions

1. Do you like surprises?
2. How has God surprised you, either recently or in your past?  
3. What do you find most surprising about the way God acts and describes Himself in the Bible?  
4. How has God fulfilled the “top line” of the Abrahamic Covenant (“I will bless you”)? What about the “bottom line” (“All peoples on earth will be blessed through you”)?
5. How content are you with your current involvement in God’s global mission? Are you hesitant, willing, or eager to be surprised by how God may want to use you?  

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