Christ Kona?

The
Problem
With the Agenda
Running in the wrong direction won’t take us home
statement of “the word of the Lord came
to Jonah” (Jonah 1:1) 2 denotes the significance
of the event. The prophet Amos
expresses the immensity of such an experience
poignantly: “The Lord God has
spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos
3:8). The divine command to Jonah was:
Go and preach. The human reply: Go and
flee. Somehow I can understand the desire
to flee—at least a tiny bit. As a recently
graduated seminarian, anxious to receive
“the call,” I found myself answering a
phone call from my conference’s vice
president and wondering to which big
city in Colorado I was going to go. After
all, I was ready for a call. Nothing prepared
me to hear him describe the
200-plus-mile radius that encompassed
my nine (!)-church district. To the num-
ber of congregations and vastness of covered
territory the added discouragement
involved the location: unfortunately, and
The true
intention of
the agenda
always
defeats
the masked
intention it
hides.
quite inaccurately, Wyoming is not
viewed as a popular vacation destination.
I wanted to flee; I wanted to imitate
Jonah. I thought about calling some other
conference, or simply not showing up to
work; what was the worst that would
happen?
Jonah’s feet were indeed swift, not to
announce the good tidings, but to flee.
One of Jonah’s problems seems to have
been that he was following his own
agenda. Agendas are not necessarily evil.
However, most of the time they tend to be
problematic. Jonah’s story shows us why.
Our Agendas Are Often
Opposed to God’s Agenda
The order given to the prophet is very
simple and concise. Jonah has a direction
to follow; the word of the Lord has
come to him. Three verbs characterize
his mission: Get up, go, and proclaim. You
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