Susan LaffertyGod gives him an assignment and Jonah runs. In the opposite direction.
Sails away on the next ship.
Hiding.
From the all-seeing, all-knowing. God of the universe.
Jonah’s disobedience rocks the boat. Impacts those around him. Striking terror in the hearts of men.
They see what the Maker of heaven and earth can do.
It’s early 2013. Delhi, India. And I’m standing at the bathroom sink. Crying out to the Father. Again.
I can see the marble counter. The dingy mirror. Remember the blur of anguish. Helplessness.
“What are we to do, Lord? How do we help our son?”
The Lord has already made two things clear to me in that season (as detailed in Prodigal, Part 1).
1. Wait. Wait on the Lord.
2. Devote yourself to prayer.
Now I’m standing on the tile floor, in evening shadows. Pleading.
“How did he turn out that way?” my teenaged son asks. We’re standing at the kitchen table. On summer vacation in Arizona.
He’s distressed. Witnessing up close the rage and deceit of someone he’s trusted and admired. The downhill slide is shocking.
“It probably started with one lie,” I say. “Then another. And another. Until finally he was living a lie.”
What I do not know at the time of that conversation will come to light a month later. The fact that our son has been lying to us. For a while.
And has moved to “a far country” of deceit fueled by anxiety. Even as he lives within the four walls of our home.
Prodigal.
The father of lies is after his very soul.