Running to Tarshish … Again

Approx. 10min read

Hey gang!

Another Sunday, another blog post!

This one is pretty much a continuation from my last post ‘Led by Disobedience’ but in Bible Study form (if you want to read that first you just got to scroll down a little bit). During the time when I was going through the motions of disobedience, I prayed to God to show me a way of understanding the season in which I was in. What can I read? Where do I even start? I was reminded of to the Book of Jonah.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

Jonah ran from God’s calling, and I realised I have too. Through Chapter 1, God showed me that delayed obedience is still disobedience—and the chaos I was in was often caused by my own choices. Yet in His mercy, God still moves. He used Jonah, even in his failure, to reveal His power and save others. This reminded me: God wants full surrender, not just my service. Obedience isn’t just an act—it’s an offering of the heart.

Now, if you don’t know the story of Jonah here’s a quick summary:

Jonah was a prophet during King Jeroboam II’s time. God told him to go to Nineveh and call them out for their wickedness, but Jonah didn’t want to help them, so he ran off to Tarshish instead. A storm hit, he got thrown overboard, swallowed by a fish, and after three days was spat out. He finally went to Nineveh, preached half-heartedly, and the people repented. Jonah got mad that God showed them mercy. God gave him a plant for shade, then took it away to make a point: if Jonah cared about a plant, why shouldn’t God care about a whole city?

Jonah, known as the prophet who resents his God for loving his enemies, is a picture of a lot of us when we have been convicted to do something for God but decide to be led by disobedience and do the complete opposite because we don’t ‘feel like it’. In this story of Jonah, everything that Jonah does it based on how he felt towards the Assyrians living in Nineveh but Nineveh isn’t just a nation if we think of it in a personal sense. We all have a Nineveh but we just have to recognise what our Nineveh is.

All of what I’ve gotten from Chapter One of the book of Jonah is a personal understanding of my situation in disobedience and how God spoke to me through this scripture. So, let’s get real and unfiltered. I’m going verse by verse.

Verse 1-2 Reflection

“I have heard from God plenty of times, but I still run to my Tarshish – following my feelings- and reject what He has commanded for me to do ‘let go of your past and surrender yourself to Me’ – it’s not always that easy.”

I have had words from pastors, heard from God through prayer and meditation on scripture but when I was reading Jonah, I had no idea how disobedient I had been. My Nineveh is surrender. Full surrender. Surrendering expectations as to what I thought my life would look like at the age of 29.

As you do, at the age of 16 I had made a fantasyland in my head as to what I thought life would look like before the age of 30. A great career, house, married at 25 with at least one child at 28 and planning to have another one before I turned 30, but my life hasn’t really worked out that way. In fact I’m still renting, only just got a career last year, definitely still single and I’m babysitting other people’s kids.

Back in December 2016, I received a word from my pastor (if you haven’t read the full story you can do, on the post ‘Story Time: The Time I Lost My Chicken’), the word was “let go of your past and surrender yourself to me”. I took that to mean my past relationship which I was still getting over at the time but when reading Jonah, I realised I was supposed to, and still am supposed to, continuously surrender my life and all areas of it. I hadn’t surrendered my perfect fairy-tale life that I had envisioned with the perfect house, perfect love story, amazing career and the kids. I was still holding onto them and I had gone from “Yas, Jesus take the wheel!” to “God when?!” to which in turn, turned into bitterness and mistrust towards God and His plan for me. I felt like life had become unfair and God was no longer for me but His plans were somehow against me.

Jonah probably felt the same the moment God told him to go to Nineveh. During the time of Jonah, the Assyrians had conquered Israel, this could have built up a lot of resentment and hatred towards the Assyrians in many Israelites, including Jonah himself so we can assume the moment God said “go to Nineveh”, Jonah was of course vexed! “To the ones who killed my people?! What for?” And we can sometimes do the same when it comes to surrender. “Give this thing that I have been holding onto for so many years to you?! What for?” It’s hard! But it’s the whole analogy of asking a homeless person who his £2 in copper change to exchange it with £200 cash. Will they do it, or will the distrust they have accumulated in the world take over and force them to not trust that the kind stranger will actually give them the cash?

Sometimes we do this with God. His plans are so much bigger than our tiny miniscule ones but lowe and behold, here we are afraid of changing our copper change for a bigger amount of cash. And that’s how we miss our blessing because we don’t truly trust that God is a good Father who has our best interest at heart.

Verse 4-6 Reflection

I have caused chaos in my own life-by myself-and I’ve decided sleeping my worries away would be the best answer. Clearly not! Why haven’t I called on my God during this storm?! WAKE UP, FARIELLE!

The Lord sent a great wind on the sea the moment Jonah’s boat set off for Tarshish. It definitely made his journey harder to endure. We’ve all seen those Ariel Fitz skits, where God is talking to her, telling her not to do something, then there’s a pause and she goes “Imma see by myself”. I know for myself I’ve definitely done that. It’s exactly what I did when God told me to surrender myself to Him, “Ok, I won’t have any expectations for this part of my life but I’ll just hold onto some of my expectations”. That’s not full surrender. That’s getting onto the boat to Tarshish. “I don’t like the people in Nineveh but I will still preach your word as you said … just elsewhere”. Child, conviction is hitting me all over again! But this is how the chaos finds us.

Those strong winds on the sea whilst we’re on the boat is because of our stubbornness and pride. The “imma see for myself” mentality that has kicked in. And in those skits, God always sends her a guardian angel to have her back and bring her back to Him where peace reigns again, but before that even happens we do a Jonah and try to sleep the chaos off below deck where he thought he could get away with ‘hiding’ from God in the dark.

“But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said ‘How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god!'” – Jonah 1:5-6

Who else goes to sleep hoping their problems will miraculously go away, only to wake up and remember that they’re still there? Oh, how I wish it was that easy. That’s exactly what Jonah tried to do in the scripture we’ve just read.

He even went below deck, which is the worst place to be during a storm because it’ll be the first part of the ship to start sinking. Isn’t this so typical of us as humans? We do our own thing thinking it’ll have the best outcome only for it to be the decision that will probably bring us closer to death itself! When I researched this whilst studying this chapter I thought, “how mad that we all think we can hide from God in the darkness, below deck, thinking He can’t see us and that we would be safe there during the storm that we caused?!” Why are we like this?

But we all know, the best place to be and find refuge is in the light with the Father, not hiding from Him.

Verse 12-13 Reflection

“I know the reason why my season is so rocky right now. It’s because of my continuous disobedience. God never sent to me Tarshish, He sent me to Nineveh//… and yet I still tried to row my almost sinking ship against the tides – clearly not working …”

I was never supposed to get onto the boat to Tarshish and try to create my own love story, or to force myself into master degrees that most definitely weren’t made for me to enter. I was never meant to start a new job role in a school whilst still hold onto my old job as a support worker. You were never meant to step into your new life with Christ, yet still hold onto your old habits when the Holy Spirit is trying to convict you to build new ones.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will – Romans 12:2

The sea is rocky and “I know it is my fault” (Jonah 1:12). Don’t get it twisted, not everything that is bad happens because of your own doing, sometimes it’s in God’s will for trials to happen, but we know when things happen because of our choices, our actions and our disobedience.

Through obedience to God we can see God’s good, pleasing and perfect will work through us. Obedience can only come through true surrender. Which will mean leaving your Tarshish, your familiar, your comfortability, and going into Nineveh, the unknown and the uncomfortable. Otherwise, we’ll be going against the tides every time and that is exhausting work! If you’ve ever been canoeing, you already know that rowing in waters that are calm is easy yet can make you tired at the end of your session, imagine doing it on rocky waters that are going against you! That’s what we’re doing every time we go in the opposite direct of God’s word.

Verse 14-15

… but what I need to do is be obedient. Go to Nineveh. See how God can use me there.

Within verse 14, it seems like Jonah is being humble and just being ‘that guy’ by offering himself as a sacrifice to stop the storm, but I was coincidentally listening to a sermon by Greg Groeschel from the Life.Church after my study on Jonah, and he was talking about the book of Jonah too! (Crazy how our God works). And he said something that changed how I saw this part of Jonah.

What if Jonah just threw himself over because he thought God would kill him and he wouldn’t have to go to Nineveh at all? What if this ‘noble and heroic’ act was really just another act of selfishness?

We do that too! “I’ll do this thing so God can bless me with what I want”, or “I’m just coming to church to receive my spiritual food but won’t nourish others through ministry (serving)”. Yep, I went there. Even those in ministry sometimes! We can do things out of selfishness and for self-exaltation. “I want to be in the praise and worship ministry so I can be seen and receive accolades for my talent” or “I want to lead a ministry so I can have control” instead of coming with the correct heart posture and, again, serve the people of God so they can be in His presence and be ready to receive His word. What about cleaning team or the other behind the scenes ministries? Sometimes we need to check our reasoning as to why we do certain things. Who am I doing this for? What is the reason? Is it for God or for self?

Now, I’m not having a go because I’m thinking about answering these questions myself. What is my heart posture? This is something we constantly need to check because we’re humans and it’s very easy to fall back into selfish reasonings and forget the teaching of Jesus and God’s word.

I did speak to my pastor about what I was going through with my mind battles and he made me realise that the reason as to why surrender was difficult is because my emotions have taken place at the alter that I should have kept for God and God alone. “Farielle, I care more about your heart posture than the things you do for God”. And he was right, because we can do the works but not actually sacrifice our lives properly.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship – Romans 12:1

A living sacrifice is alive and stays at the alter. Giving your body, not just physical body but soul and spirit-the entirety of you, is a form of obedience to God’s will. God wants all of you, not just your works. He cares more about your heart and obedience to Him than He does the things you do for Him!

What’s God’s Nature in All This?

In Chapter one, we learn that God is a God who has a heart for all not just the Israelites. As we know, those from Nineveh were Assyrians who worshipped idols and yet God still wanted them to turn from their wicked ways (Jonah 1:2). God’s love is so wide that it reaches people that we probably would think could, or would, never believe in God. This is the beginning of a journey where God says “no one is too far or too hard to reach”.

Another thing that was revealed to me about God’s nature is that God will still use you, even in your disobedience. Once Jonah had woken up from his deep sleep and made his way to the deck, the sailors figured out it was him who was the cause of this and questioned the heck out of him (Jonah 1:7-8). He declared who he was and who he believed in:

He answered, ‘I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land.’ This terrified them and they asked, ‘What have you done?’ – Jonah 1:9-10

First of all, he had already told them that he was running away from God so that part was not new information for them. What was new, and revealed to them shortly after, was how mighty Jonah’s God was.

They took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to Him. – Jonah 1:15-16

They got saved! Jonah was used in his disobedience and people came to God because it was revealed to them that He is the one true God. They had already prayed to their gods and none of them had calmed the storm, but the moment the decision to throw Jonah off the boat was made, the God of the Hebrews stopped the storm. That was their own personal encounter.

I’m not saying to be disobedient so God can use you, I’m telling you that regardless of if you are obedient to God or not, He will still reach people because God cares for people. He cares for the lost. In the same way how we should too. Look at this way, although Jonah was disobedient in what God requested for him to do He still declared his belief in God and His might. Through believing that God could still turn the situation around the fishermen saw the wonders of the LORD.

Stepping out of faith can allow others to see God work in their own lives and bring them to know Him for themselves.

Your Personal Reflection

So, that was my personal revelation and take on Jonah 1 but what’s yours?

Look at these questions to ask yourself:

1. What is your Nineveh? – What have you been asked to do by God that you are avoiding by going to your Tarshish?
2. What’s your heart saying? – is your heart in the correct place and are you doing things with the correct reasons or selfish, ‘throw myself off the the boat’ type reasons?
3. How’s your worship? – have you given your time to God, or have you just surrendered your time to other idols?

As we come to the end of this blog post I would love if you would not just think about those questions but even if you want to share them I am here for that too.

I will be continuing this as a mini series because this is only Chapter 1 of 4 and so much was revealed to me that gave me a lot to think about. Hope you enjoyed reading the blog and look out for Chapter Two’s breakdown next week.

Stay safe, stay blessed

That’s all she wrote …

Led by Disobedience

Hello!

It has indeed been a while … over 4 years to be exact! Goodness.

I’m sorry for neglecting the blog and not sharing. I was definitely being led by disobedience.

The last time I wrote a blog, I was most certainly dealing with a lot of things, hence the ‘Healing in the Chaos’ post being the last one [which you can go back and read again, I mean it has been 4 years, need an episode recap].

I have since dealt with majority of that battle but like any war, there is still a little aftermath that I am still working on. But I’m not working on them alone and I will eventually go through that with you in another post. For now, I want to talk about being led by disobedience.

Let’s begin with a definition. According to Oxford dictionary (2025) disobedience is defined as

failure or refusal to obey rules or someone in authority

When I started this blog, it was without a topic or purpose, then in 2020 God gave it a purpose. The purpose of this blog is to share my battles, and my thoughts, in hopes that it can reach those who need to be encouraged and realise that they are not alone. Realising that someone else out there has gone through, and is potentially still going through, the same struggles they are currently in so they can find comfort in remembering that God will pull them through the situation because another has been pulled out by Him.

I forgot all about that and put myself first above the thing God had paved a way for me to start. My page has very much been inactive but somehow I still receive visits to my blog, follows here and there and likes to my posts. This shows that God is still using my blog to reach people. But I had fallen into disobedience and focused on me, my feelings, how overwhelmed I felt, and how I needed rest [see how selfish disobedience can make you?].

This definitely opened a door for the enemy to seep in and place feelings of doubt, insecurity and inadequacy into me. This then led me to feeling like I couldn’t do the blog until I was ‘good enough’, had ‘enough time’ or was ‘well rested’. Isn’t that exactly what the enemy wants? Wants us to be so weary that we stop thinking about serving others and focus on our own worries because we’re so tired, then tells us we can’t possibly reach others for the Kingdom or do things for God because of the way we think about ourselves.

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High – Daniel 7:25

Don’t get me wrong, we all get tired. We all need rest, but it’s where we seek the rest, and how, that is important. Jesus says:

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light – Matthew 11:30

And it’s for us to believe that it is, because once we believe and have faith in how true this is, trust me it all gets easier.

When I decided to take a short ‘rest’ from writing I was so overwhelmed with my life. I wasn’t getting any shifts at work, I felt stuck in a job I never wanted to be in for as long as I was, I was trying to find a career path that best suited me and nowhere accepted me, amongst some other things. It was frustrating, painful and I didn’t want to keep living like that anymore. I was fed up.

I had forgotten the words that were spoken “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. For a few months within 2021 I had forgotten, and quite frankly thought there was a curse over my life of not being able to move on and create a career at the age of 25.

We’ve all been there. “If I just got this job, I will be fine“; “if I just get more money, I can rest“; “if I just get that loving husband/wife and kids, I’ll be complete“, but this isn’t true rest because best believe you’ll be doing all that you can to achieve these things yet worry about never having them.

True rest is remembering that through it all, God gives the ultimate rest. He sustains all! When we cling and rely on Him for us to be fine, for us to have rest and for us to be complete this is when we feel that Matthew 11:30 scripture come to light [quite literally].

In October 2021, that was the moment it clicked. The moment I finally decided to look up and I took my war stance, came out of disobedience and into where God was trying to take me. In that moment, I felt my heart become light and although I barely had any money, I was still in a job, and company I didn’t like working for, and was still being rejected for masters, my problems felt like they were already solved and I had no worries or cares on my mind. That’s what true rest feels like.

Ultimate Joy in the Chaos.

And just like I remembered that with God, I was able to handle every problem properly. With patience, grace and most importantly guidance from the Spirit.

Sometimes we can really be Israelites “Moses, we hungry! Moses, we thirsty! Aaron, build us a god because clearly that Moses guy wasn’t legit and this ‘God’ is unseen”. Don’t forget who took you out of Egypt … but we’ll talk about building our own unseen idols and alters another time. That was just for free lol.

I can’t wait to update you guys with what has happened in my life since 2021, what God has done, what God is continuously revealing in me and what’s been happening in this new season I’m in. The good, the bad, and the down right disobedient!

We’ve got a lot of catching up to do …

Stay safe, stay blessed

That’s All She Wrote x

This ‘New’ Season

DISCLAIMER: I actually wrote this last year and did not post it! Really need to check myself!

Hi!!

It’s been over 4 years since I last wrote a blog (yikes!) I apologise. Life has really been doing its thing and I’ve removed myself from a lot of things since my last blog.

When I tell you that ‘Healing in the Chaos’ was a live and direct blog, it was indeed happening in that moment. And now? I am still healing but it’s not as chaotic where I am and that’s all thanks to God. I’ll probably go into that in a later blog.

Right, enough waffling. Let’s get into today’s blog!

At the beginning of the year (2024), whilst on a big walk in a local country park with my friends, the question of “what is your word for this year?” was asked. This, of course, is a very typical question on the 1st January (New Years resolutions and all them tings there). As we went around, people were saying their words, ‘self-discipline’, ‘obedience’. Then it was my turn. “What’s your word Farielle?”

New

“Oh … that’s interesting. New, what?” “How can you have the word new and not know what it means?” another asked.

At the time I had no idea why the word ‘new’ or what it meant. I just knew that it was the word that I had.

Anyway, that was January.

When I started this page, I was just about to finish my undergrad and was working as a support worker. In January of this year, I was just about to finish my post-grad in teaching and working as a Learning Support Assistant (LSA) in a high school. Now..?

I write this days before starting a career as a high school teacher in Religious Education, in my old high school no less! Teaching about Christianity every day!!

This, amongst other things, was my something new!

The way God gave me this job was so easy, that even now I cannot fathom how He did it and even sometimes question “me? Really?”

But the devil does that. He makes you doubt the things that God has promised to you, making you feel inadequate and unworthy of God’s goodness. Just like he did in the garden:

“But the serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened [that is, you will have greater awareness], and you will be like God, knowing [the difference between] good and evil.””
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭AMP‬‬

He deceived Eve by making her think that she pretty much knew nothing and therefore wasn’t worthy. She doubted her ability, and even God, which made her forget that she was made in the likeness of God!

“Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; …”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭26‬ ‭AMP‬‬

This meant that Adam, Eve, and even us, are more like God than we think! Linking back to a previous blog where I spoke about how our emotions are God’s emotions.

In Romans 1:20 Paul wrote:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made

‘What has been made’ translates into one word in the Greek which is ‘poiema’, better know as ‘masterpiece’ or ‘workmanship’. ‘Poiema’ also translates into the English word ‘poem’.

You and I are literally God’s poem! And where do poems flow from? The heart of the creator.

So not only are we made Imageo Dei, made in the image and likeness of God, we are also God’s poem (His heart) walking! Kind of like what mothers say about their children. God sees so much value and potential in us, much like any loving Father should, so when He gives us the things that we feel we are undeserving of, who are we to question it? For in the eyes of God

we are deserving of those blessings, opportunities and new chapters because God has given them to us

If there’s anyone who is the best at giving gifts it’s God himself because He gifts us with things we sometimes didn’t even know we needed until they were given to us.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So remember all of this when the devil starts trying to spew his dirty poison into your ear when you’ve received a gift that has been confirmed to be from the Father (don’t forget the devil gives gifts too – have discernment to know that your gift came from God).

Don’t allow your mind to fester on negative thoughts that will derail you through self-sabotage and make you miss the promise that God is giving to you! You don’t want to be like Moses and miss out on the Promise Land (Numbers 20:11-12).

I am planning on continuing with the blog properly (I’m done with being disobedient by not writing them – sorry God), how often I’m unsure because teaching life is very hectic, but I will post as often as I can.

I know, I normally write as the weeks come and like I said, not writing these blogs has been an act of disobedience, as I’ve been reminded of them for three years (yikes x2!)

Hope you enjoyed this post and was able to be encouraged through it.

Stay safe, stay blessed

That’s all she wrote …