If we're honest, we are also often very reluctant when it comes to telling others about Jesus. We can learn from God's dealings with Jonah about how to be effective for the Lord, whom we love and want to serve. We can move from can't and don't to can and do.

Like Jonah we need learn to trust his awesome power (chapter 1), experience his sovereign grace (chapter 2), fear his coming judgment (chapter 3) and share his gut-wrenching compassion (chapter 4). All this is perfectly revealed in Jesus, the divine Evangelist, and as we look to him and as the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with his evangelistic compassion, our hearts will sing with the melodic line of Jonah, "Salvation comes from the LORD" (Jonah 2 v 11) and our lives will erupt with the evangelistic enterprise that our cities so desperately need.