What We Can Learn from the Old Testament’s Runaway Prophets

Who wouldn’t want to be a prophet?

Well, a lot of the people who were actually prophets in the Old Testament.

Moses, when called out of the burning bush, essentially responded by asking ‘Why me?’ (Exodus 3:11). Elijah, fresh off vanquishing all the prophets of Baal, is unnerved by Jezebel and flees in the wilderness, asking God for death (1 Kings 19:4). Most infamously, Jonah literally ran away from his calling (Jonah 1:3).

Other Old Testament prophets sometimes resisted their vocation as well. Jeremiah declared,

You seduced me, LORD, and I let myself be seduced;
you were too strong for me, and you prevailed.

I say I will not mention him,
I will no longer speak in his name.
But then it is as if fire is burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding back,
I cannot!

(Jeremiah 20:7, 9).

Even Ezekiel was less than enthusiastic:

And the spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went off, my spirit angry and bitter, for the hand of the LORD pressed hard on me (Ezekiel 3:14).

And again, in Ezekiel 8:3, a pre-Incarnate Christ who appears to Him in one of His visions ‘seized me by the hair of my head.’

It doesn’t seem like it should be this way. Shouldn’t things go more smoothly in the calling of God’s messengers? Surely, God would pick people eager to carry His word out into the world?

But prophets are more than just speakers of God’s words; they also convey His truth through their lives. And their reluctance speaks to the way God can, without overriding it, gently turn our free will towards love of Him. Indeed, God can work through the most unlikely of instruments — whether the talking donkey of Numbers 22, a prophet who was swallowed by a whale, or a persecutor of Christians (St. Paul).

If God can do this, then He surely can redeem us from the Fall, reversing its effects. The story of the prophets, then, becomes our story as well. Their return to God has lessons for us on our walks with and to God.

Encountering God’s word can be frightening. Even Mary — the holiest human being to ever live who was not also God — had to be told not to be frightened by God’s promise for her life (Luke 1:30). Remember Zechariah the priest was struck dumb after receiving the angel’s prophecy. Paul, the writer and itinerant preacher, was blinded. In the Old Testament, Isaiah feared for his life after witnessing the liturgy of the heavenly court (Isaiah 6:5).

The interior struggle is normal. Jacob wrestled with the angel. Elijah, Jonah, and Jeremiah particularly struggled with how to receive God’s word. Job, the Old Testament’s man of sorrows, suffered much in His relationship with God. With the benefit of some distance and hindsight we could say such struggles are part of our purification — God burning away the dross of sin and whatever is opposed to Him within us.

Nonetheless, God doesn’t abandon us. Stuck in the belly of a whale, deep in the sea, God must have seemed distant to Jonah. And yet, God hears Jonah’s cries for help and his desperate prayers reach all the way to His heavenly temple (Jonah 2:3, 8).

God also comes after us. He did, after all, send the whale after Jonah and His angel to minister to a despondent Elijah. God both waits for us to return to Him even as He goes out searching for us.

We must still say yes to God. Despite wrestling so mightily with God, He never forces His grace upon us. His call always remains and invitation and not an intrusion. Yes, God ‘prevailed’ over Jeremiah but it was Jeremiah who ‘let myself be seduced.’ The God who sent fire from heaven to consume His sacrifice later spoke sweetly in soft whispers to Elijah. God is gentle in His might and relentless in His tender mercy for us.

image: Nheyob [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons