Unexpected Grace. This title might sound a little redundant because by definition grace is getting something you don't deserve, but we can often find grace in the places and ordeals of life where we least suspect to find it.

Like Jonah.

Most people are familiar with the main idea of the story of Jonah. Prophet of God...runs...big fish...three days...Nineveh...he finally obeys.

In chapter 1 you find Jonah running from God. You might have heard it taught something like this: Jonah was a prophet of God who disobeyed God, so God sent a storm and a big fish to swallow up Jonah. So the moral of the story is you better obey God or He might send a big fish (metaphor for some hard circumstance) to swallow you up. We shake our heads and say, 'Oh Jonah!...You should have known!'

But what if there is more to the story. What if this isn't the point of Jonah's story at all. What if the point is this: God is unveiling and revealing His grace as He relentlessly pursues Jonah's heart.

The truth is this. God didn't need Jonah. When Jonah chose to run away, God could have let him go and raised another prophet to go to Nineveh.

But He didn't.

Rather, by His grace He set out to deliver Jonah, to rescue Jonah, and to show Jonah His heart. What if, as Tullian Tchividjian writes, the storm and the fish were really measures of God's grace as He relentlessly chased Jonah to rescue Jonah from Jonah?

That's where we are headed in the coming weeks.

Unexpected Grace.

It's a good thing.