Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges.  This week’s topic is part of our series called EPIC where we’ve been exploring how Jesus is found throughout the Old Testament part of the Bible. We’re reading some epic old stories from the Old Testament, some of which you might have heard before, some of which might be new to you. But our hope is that in each of them we’ll see how they’re part of one big epic story: the story of the Bible, the story of the world, God’s story.

Our daily challenges are meant to help you explore what it means to follow Jesus, even if you don’t have a lot of time. That’s why we have a rhythm that keeps us in sync, even if we’re not a community that meets together in person regularly. This means every Monday we introduce the week’s idea. Every Tuesday we study it in the Bible. Every Wednesday we see how that challenges and transforms our thinking on the topic. Thursdays we try to apply and live it out. Friday is a day for prayer and reflection before we take a rest on Saturday, and Sundays we meet together with other Christians in community.

If you’ve had kids, maybe you’ve had the experience of telling your child to do something – like get dressed, wash their hands, come inside, or otherwise.  You’ve got a plan – after they get dressed, you’ll go out.  After they wash their hands, you’ll eat.   After they come inside, you’ll and he ran in the exact opposite direction.

How I react to it really depends on how important the task is.  In other words, how late we woke up, and how close we are to being late for school and work.

If we were up early, and there is lots of time, I can play along, and patiently wait.  But if we’re running late, and I know I’m going to miss an appointment, or a train, or there’s already been a lot of delays, I can be a little impatient.

Now, whether you have children or not, imagine how a parent can react in that situation.  What are their options, when a child runs away and refuses to do what they’re told is necessary?

This is good preparation for this week’s story, where God gives a man named Jonah a job to do, and Jonah runs the other way.  In this case, however, the job is so important that God has to intervene in a pretty spectacular way to get it done as planned.

Question: What options does a parent have, when their child runs away from an important task?  What options do you think God has?