Crisis Management

Reading: Jonah 1:5

Introduction: The Bible has much to say about what to do in a crisis. We are going to examine the response of the sailors in Jonah 1:5 to the storm at sea that they encountered and draw some applications from it for our Christian lives today.

1. An Emotional Response. This is our usual first reaction to bad news or a difficult situation: “All the sailors were afraid…”

It is natural to be alarmed or upset when something bad happens or when we become anxious of the future. Bible characters were no different to us. Paul and Moses knew fear and trembling. The apostle was afraid to preach to the Greek crowds at Corinth (1 Corinthians 2:3), while Moses was afraid to go before the King of Egypt to deliver God’s message (Exodus 4:13). The early church did not break out into songs of worship when the evangelist Stephen was killed but rather mourned for him (Acts 8:2), as King David did for his son (2 Samuel 13:37). Jesus Christ was a man of many emotions: He wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35) and reacted with furious passion when he saw that the money-changers had taken over the Gentile’s prayer court in Jerusalem (John 2:15). So it is both natural and biblical to have an initial emotional response to difficulties.

2. A Spiritual Response. After the initial emotional response, Christian disciples should turn their eyes towards heaven, as these sailors did: “Each cried out to his own God…”

We cannot know the religion of these mariners. They may even have thought themselves to
be atheists until this crisis – it is interesting how a disaster turns an atheist to prayer! If our
fears/ tears drive us to God then they have been a blessing. It is okay to have an emotional
response to a crisis as long as this quickly develops into prayer. Of course, the comfort and
help of others can be useful but, as Joyce Meyer once said, “We must learn to reach for the
throne rather than for the phone”.

3. A Practical Response. After prayer, these men then began to do something practically to help themselves: “They threw the cargo into the sea…”

In some instances we should commit our situation to the Lord and leave it with Him. But
this is probably to be considered the exception rather than the rule. God often answers
prayer by inspiring us to perform wise action (James 1:5) and the solution to our situation
will often be some God inspired action on our part, maybe even a change of our own
behaviour. Sometimes, as with Jonah, there is a particular piece of action for us to do, which
will unlock our situation. The lesson here is that God will work with us and through us.

Conclusion: Which of these elements are you prone to miss out in a crisis? In many cases, it will be the effective deployment of both TWO and THREE that will resolve our trouble!