God is the call of your destiny in your life. Will you become the unique individual you were created to be, or will you flounder by trying to impose your own will upon the future? In the bible story of Jonah and the whale, we are told of Jonah’s destiny. God wants Jonah to bring a message of repentance and forgiveness to the people of Nineveh. But Jonah is self-righteous. He has his own feelings towards these people, and compassion is not one of them. Jonah tries to run from his calling by taking a ship to another land. A violent storm engulfs the ship, however, and his crew mates, realizing he is the cause of their troubles, throw him overboard. As the angry sea begins to calm, he is swallowed by a whale where he is given some time to reconsider his attitudes.
Jonah was so attached to his own view of things he behaved as if he was God, and wiser than God. He wanted to make his own destiny rather than follow God’s command. What he didn’t realize was that destiny only comes from God, not the ego. So God pushed Jonah over the edge, literally and figuratively.
God is a process that is always evolving, always unfolding, always moving beyond itself. What seems rational and appropriate today may be just the opposite tomorrow. To know God is to evolve and transform, to see what is rather than focus on what you think should be. When you are too sure or fond of your own worldview you wall yourself off from God. Life is a process of discovery, but it’s hard to discover anything new if you think you’ve seen it all.
If you are going to assist in the unfolding of God’s universe, you must loosen the hold of your rational, common-sense mind and embrace a mystery you do not yet understand. If you only do what makes sense to you, you restrict the Spirit’s movement in your life to the cage of your logical mind. But if you are willing to follow your heart and instincts into things you don’t understand, you allow the magic, mystery, and wisdom of God’s creative love to move through you. You cannot really know God if you think you know more about what you or others need than God does. Or, to put it another way, you cannot know God, if you think you know God.