Our Trip with Jona

Written Wednesday, 25 May 2011

When our nephew Jonatán was five years old, we took him along with us on a month-long trip to Uruguay. Our 1981 diesel Oldsmobile took us first from South Carolina to Miami. Jona sat in the front seat, between Deborah and me (though now with kids of my own, I’m wondering if he was really supposed to be up there). We had no children at the time; but Jona as a five-year-old counted for maybe three. A theme that developed in the front seat was—directed to him to encourage calmness—“If I crash, you crash.” He liked it. In Costa Rica, rather late in our layover, we decided to try to tour as much of the country as we could in half an hour or so. Barely returning to our gate in time—Jona in tow—we caught our flight to the next layover in Lima, Perú. Our memories of Lima include running Jona in the airport to tire him out, following one of his dad’s suggestions to us.

The purpose of our trip was both to visit family and to continue surveying the possibility of returning someday for the sake of the gospel. A more deliberate theme for the trip came from the first few verses of Psalm 105: “Make known his deeds among the people. . . . talk of all his wondrous works.” I distinctly remember talking with Jona about some of this. And certainly our trip included some opportunity to make God known—a daunting and humbling idea for sure—as we at least a few times talked about what God had done.

As I write—sitting in the same Costa Rica airport en route to Uruguay with my own energetic five-year-old—we are finishing the first month since Jona’s life was taken by cancer. At his memorial service several people spoke; but much of the time was taken up by recordings of Jona’s own testimony. With the psalmist David (Jona’s middle name), Jona talked of God’s lifting him from the miry clay and setting his feet on a rock. And he did this before an audience of a thousand people. But the audience in reality was much, much larger. For twenty months believers from literally across the globe watched this young man respond to God’s dealings with him. Jona’s life and words tell of God’s work in one of His children.

Though we acknowledge many God-given talents that Jona enjoyed, if we’re honest we have to admit that in many ways he really was a rather ordinary guy. The chemotherapy was excruciating. He told us in his memorial service of even wanting to end his own life, due to the effects of the treatment on his body and mind. And he of course struggled with sin along with the rest of us. But his life was one that knew God’s grace: God’s saving grace given to him in the gospel and His ongoing, sustaining grace, also given to Him in Christ. And in his weakness and ultimate death, he made known God’s deeds and talked of His works “among the people.” It was God’s grace at work in ordinary weakness. That offers hope for my own five-year-old (and seven-month-old). And it provides hope for ordinary people like me.

O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.

Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works (Psalm 105:1-2).