Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another week of Carpooling with Jesus. I'm Pastor Justin, and I'm so glad you're riding with me today. Imagine this: Jesus is sitting there in the car with you, giving you some advice and some thoughts before you head to school. What would he say? Buckle up, because today we're going to dive into something I think Jesus would definitely talk about: the story of Jonah. Have you ever been asked to do something you really didn't want to do? Clean your room or help your little siblings, maybe change a diaper or share your favorite toy or video game? Jonah was asked to do something pretty big. And instead of doing it, he decided to run in the opposite direction. Let's check out what happened and what lesson Jesus might have for us today. So there he was, Jonah, the prophet, which means he was someone who shared God's messages with the people. One day God gave Jonah a really clear message. Let's listen to what it says in Jonah chapter one, verses one through three. The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai. Get up. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their evil has come up before me. Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord's presence. Wow. Did you catch that? God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, a city full of people doing the wrong thing, and to warn them that they needed to change their ways and turn toward God. But what did Jonah do? He went in the opposite direction. See, he didn't like the people of Nineveh, and he didn't want God to forgive them. So instead of obeying God, Jonah got on a boat and sailed in the opposite direction. Imagine if your mom or dad asked you to clean your room and you hopped on your bike and started riding away down the street. Or your teacher asked you to clean off the white board or the dry erase board in your classroom, and you opened a window, jumped out, and started running toward an ice cream stand. That's exactly what Jonah did. He tried to avoid going to Nineveh, like God asked, all together. But here's the thing. Jonah thought he could run away from God's plan. But you can't really hide from God, can you? Jonah was about to learn the hard way that when we don't listen to God, it can cause big trouble, not just for us, but for others too. But that's a story for next time. Before we end today, let's think about this. When someone asks you to do something, what's your first reaction? Have you ever tried to avoid doing the right thing? How did it work out for you? Has a parent or a teacher ever asked you to do something and you put it off or forgot about it because you got distracted with a friend or with a toy? When we're asked to do something, God's hope is that we are listening. When it's a parent or a teacher asking us to do something, God is hoping that we are going to listen the first time. Part of this is learning and training, so that when the time comes where God speaks to us and directs things in our own life, we are ready to listen to God the first time. Just think about the last couple of days. When someone asked you for something, was it easy for you to do it the first time? Or did you need a lot of reminding, or did you accidentally forget because you were too distracted with other things? That is the lesson God is trying to teach us here, that when he speaks, he wants us to listen. All right, friends. That's it for today's car ride. Next time we'll find out what happened to Jonah when he tried running from God. And trust me, it's a wild story. Now remember, no matter where you are or how you're listening, God loves you. And parents, if you enjoyed this podcast, share it with your parent friends so they can have faith filled moments, too. Here's a question to answer before you get out of the car. When's a time a parent or teacher asked you to do something and you didn't? How did that work out for you?
