May 16

Jonah 1:3
“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord”— Jonah 1:33But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. (Jonah 1:3).
THE course of the backslider is always downward. When Jonah, in a spirit of disobedience, rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord, he went down to Joppa; then down into the ship. Verse 5 says he went “down into the sides of the ship;” in 2:6 we read, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.” It is only as we walk in fellowship with God that our way is upward. Then indeed we shall prove that the path of the just is as a shining light which shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day, ever leading us upward and onward to that city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.
“Now have I seen Thee and found Thee,
For Thou hast found Thy sheep;
I fled, but Thy love would follow―
I strayed, but Thy grace would keep.
Thou hast granted my heart’s desire—
Most blest of the blessed is he
Who findeth no rest and no sweetness
Till He rests, O Lord, in Thee.
O Lord, Thou seest, Thou knowest,
That to none my heart can tell
The joy and the love and the sorrow,
The tale that my heart knows well.
But to Thee, O my God, I can tell it—
To Thee, and to Thee, Lord, alone:
For Thy heart my heart hath a language
For other hearts it hath none.”
―H. Suso.