The word of the LORD went out to Jonah.
Jonah 1, 1

One morning, while the prophet Jonah was shaving, God’s word came to him. God spoke to him in an audible voice. (Today we feel more in our hearts what God wants to say, what He feels, what He wants, but we very, very rarely hear His powerful voice). Jonah! – the LORD called to him, “Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, and threaten its ruin! For its evil reputation has reached up to me.
Jonah was terrified. To Nineveh? These butchers of men! No, that is dangerous, and with such a message! No, no, no, I don’t want that. But what shall I do? – and so he thought for a moment, gathered up his personal things and ran to the harbor. And there lay indeed – o, what a “coincidence”, – a ship that wanted to sail to the end of the world. He paid for the trip, went on board and was satisfied. So far away from the Lord, he was safe from such dangerous assignments.
We too sometimes want to escape the Lord. Maybe we want to do something, and we think he doesn’t like it. And so we turn on music, watch TV, make phone calls, but we don’t turn an ear to the Lord that He could not correct us. Everyone has his own tricks. Or we like a sin and want to “enjoy” it a little more. Or we have bad thoughts, bad friends, bad behavior …. and we don’t want a correction, at least not now.
Actually God does not need to talk to us at all, we know His will exactly. And nevertheless we turn away from …. Nah, that can’t go well! With Jonah we will see it, and we might already have our experience how it ends, running away from God…

Jesus, here I am! Forgive me, I hid from You, although you see everything clearly and know every thought even in the darkest darkness. Lord, I am back and want to walk on your ways again. Please cleanse me and fill me anew with Your Holy Spirit!