There are some things we want God to forget. For example, perhaps he’s called you to minister to the homeless, but that makes you very uncomfortable. Or maybe he’s called you to minister to your brother who has fallen away from the church, but broaching the topic is always awkward. You wouldn’t mind if God forgot that he asked you to do these things. After all, you know you’ll minister elsewhere, just not in those inconvenient places.
Jonah had those thoughts, too. Right before chapter three, he’d been vomited up by a whale. He was probably thinking, “Okay, enough, God! Let’s just move on.” But God was having none of it. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you’” (verses 1-2). God had saved Jonah from the whale, but he hadn’t forgotten why Jonah ended up there. He commanded Jonah to return to the task at hand. Jonah learned an important lesson that day: nothing can cause God to forget those he’s called.
When the world is going to chaos, when we feel like we’ve just gone through a whale’s digestive system, we can rest assured that one thing will be constant – our God who loves and calls us. He won’t forget what he’s called us to do, and he won’t let us forget, either. No matter what the uncomfortable, awkward, inconvenient task may be, he will be there with us. We aren’t called to be alone; we are called to his work, with him guiding us every step of the way. We don’t have to be afraid or hesitant. He is with us always.