# 10 - The Interrogation
Jonah 1:7 – “And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.’”
And they said to one another
This was a team problem – not just a problem faced by one of the sailors; and for a team problem, there needs to be a team solution. Very often when there’s a team problem, the team tends to look up to one or two people (Pastor, Coach, Manager, Boss etc) to solve the problem. But it’s usually the effort of the entire team that helps solve a team problem. Isn’t it interesting that the verse doesn’t say, “And the Captain said…” It says, “They said to one another,” meaning that the entire team was involved in trying to resolve the crisis they were in.
The world is facing a crisis at the moment – a crisis that’s more than a health and financial crisis. It’s one that’s affecting almost every area of our lives. It isn’t just one country or a few countries that are facing this crisis – the whole world is being affected by it. And if that’s the case, then the solution should be not be worked out at city-level, state-level, or national levels – the solution needs to be worked on at a global level, with all nations coming together to do what can be done. This requires a team effort.
Likewise, The Church at large needs to come together to seek the Lord for a solution for this crisis that is facing our world. Jesus said that we (The Church) are ‘the Salt of the earth,’ and ‘the Light of the world.’ If that is the case, then we should be earnestly, desperately, unitedly and continuously seeking the Lord for His solution to this crisis. We can’t afford to take this situation lightly and relax, waiting for it to disappear, because there are no such signs prevalent anywhere in the world at present – in fact the opposite is true. If we, The Church are quiet, then it means we care nothing for both our lives and for those around us as well. The Lord is counting on us to make a difference. We need to come together like never before and plead with the Lord for both ourselves and on behalf of the world. And until the crisis is ended, we also need to be available to the world around to serve them in every way possible. People are struggling in so many practical ways; they suffering emotionally, they are suffering mental stress, and they are struggling spiritually, seeking answers from their gods and finding none. We need to reach out to them in love like never before and demonstrate the love we so enjoy and so profess to possess.
“Come let us cast lots”
Different cultures have different ways they seek guidance for various situations. Sometimes, people in the same culture may have different methods they employ to seek guidance for direction. In the case of the mariners, they decided to cast lots – perhaps a method that was prevalent back in their day (as it still is in some places today). There are different ways people cast lots even today. We’re not sure which method they employed to cast lots, but that’s what they did to arrive at the answer to their question.
As The Church, what do we do when we need guidance in various situations in our lives? Do we employ worldly methods to seek the Lord’s guidance or do we just seek the Lord Himself for guidance? We don’t need to follow any particular method to seek the Lord’s guidance – we just need to seek the Lord. Now the Lord may use any method He chooses to guide us - that’s His prerogative, but all we need to do is to seek Him. The problem with following a particular method for seeking guidance from the Lord is that once we get used to using certain methods, then we tend to idolise those methods and not really seek the Lord.
That we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us
No Normal Storm
The mariners realised that, despite their skills at sea and their knowledge about the wind and the waves, they were in a crisis that was beyond their control or intervention. They seemed to know that this was no ordinary, regular storm – there was something supernatural about it. They saw the hand of God in it. This is evident from the fact that they began asking another - “Who’s responsible for this trouble?” They believed that someone on the ship was responsible for the trouble they were facing, and they wanted to get to the bottom of who it was.
The Hand of God?
Isn’t it clear from the way this virus has taken over the world, that there’s more than a human hand in what’s happening? This is no regular health crisis. Think about it’s impact on every area of life and on every country in the world. Could this really be a man-made disaster? Could God have a hand in sending this into the world for a reason?
Who’s to Blame?
Very often, when faced with a situation or a conflict in life, our first reaction is to seek someone to blame. Somehow when we pin someone with blame, the problem seems to decrease in magnitude. It doesn’t really solve the problem, but the problem seems more manageable. The blame game is really an age-old problem – it began in the Garden of Eden and has not ended till date. It’s prevalent in marriage relationships, amongst siblings, friends, at work places, in neighbourhoods and even amongst leaders of countries. There are no racial, national, community, religious divides when it comes to playing the blame game – we all enjoy it and play it really well. It’ll be hard to find a winner for this game – we’re all experts.
This was precisely true of the sailors too. They were faced with a huge and life-threatening situation. Firstly, they needed to find someone to blame, and they set out with a plan to do just that. After the captains’ stern talk with Jonah, they decided on a method to discover the person responsible for the storm.
The world is facing the worst health crisis it’s ever faced and at the moment it seems like we’re all fighting a losing battle with this virus. But as usual, the blame game has started with countries blaming one another for the crisis, and as always, this isn’t solving the problem, but rather aggravating it.
Questions to God
We need to stop and ask the Lord why we are going through what we are going through across the globe. I wonder how much responsibility we as The Church have to take for the ‘storm’ the world is facing during this global pandemic. Have we not done our job of discipling the nations? Have we boarded our get-away ships in the attempts to flee from our life’s call to make disciples of the world? Is this the Lord’s way of waking us up out of our deep slumber? Are we responsible for what the world is suffering right now (we aren’t exempt either). It’s time to rise up and plead with the Lord for mercy, both for us The Church, and for the world as well.
While we’re waiting for the Lord to intervene, let’s also get involved with helping people around who are going through mental, emotional, physical and spiritual issues. They have needs that many of us can help meet and thereby demonstrate the love of God to them in a very tangible way. Let’s remember what someone once said, “People don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.” But most of all, their real need is to come to faith in Jesus and be saved from a lost eternity and that’s what we were saved for – nothing less.
If each of us search ourselves, we’ll find all of us The Church, searching ourselves and if all of us do, perhaps the Lord will have mercy and intervene and bring about reprieve to this situation. But if we continue to sail along in our deep slumber, let’s be prepared for worse times ahead.
Michael Collins
