I need to tell you something about second chances that might change everything.
But first… I have to admit something uncomfortable.
I understand Jonah’s reluctance more than I’d like to.
You know the story. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah runs the opposite direction, gets thrown overboard, swallowed by a fish, finally prays for forgiveness, and then… God speaks to him again. “The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time” (Jonah 3:1, NLT).
A second time.
That line wrecks me every time I read it. Because honestly? I spent years feeling like I might have missed my chance. That God might forgive me, but He certainly wouldn’t use me again. Not after I’d drifted so far. Not after I’d stopped showing up. Not after I’d started building my own version of spirituality that kept Jesus in the mix but put me in charge of everything else.
Which is… a lot to unpack.
The Assignment You Don’t Want
Here’s what I’ve learned about running from God: it doesn’t usually look like running. It looks like “wisdom.” It looks like “boundaries.” It looks like “protecting myself from toxic religion.” We rarely announce we’re leaving. We just… drift. Find very reasonable sounding excuses for why “not yet” makes more sense than “yes, Lord.”
When God started nudging me back toward church, I knew exactly what that would require. I’d have to be honest about where I’d been. About the spiritual practices I’d picked up that had nothing to do with Christianity. About the ways I’d blended Jesus with whatever else felt good at the time. About how I’d basically appointed myself as my own spiritual guide because I didn’t trust anyone else to do it.
The thought of walking back into a church, being fully seen… it felt massive. Like walking into Nineveh level massive.
I could have kept my distance. Stayed on the edges. But God was clear: come back honestly.
And honestly? I get why Jonah got on that boat to Tarshish.
Because when God asks you to do something that requires you to be fully seen (past mistakes, present inadequacies, the whole messy package), your first instinct isn’t obedience. It’s self protection. I mean, of course it is.
Maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Maybe you’re tired of the disconnect. You love Jesus, but watching his followers behave in ways that contradict everything he taught makes you want to run the other direction. Maybe you’ve started thinking, “It’s his fanbase that sucks,” and you can’t shake that thought during worship anymore. (If you ever go to worship anymore.)
Maybe you’ve been telling yourself you don’t need the institution to have a relationship with God. That you can curate your own spirituality… keep the parts that resonate, set aside the parts that feel oppressive, trust your gut to sort out the rest.
And maybe, like Jonah (and like me), you’ve been finding very reasonable sounding excuses for why “not yet” makes more sense than “yes, Lord.”
When You’re Stuck Between Two Worlds
Nobody tells you that you can feel both liberated and lost at the same time.
Free from institutional control but grieving certainty. Released from judgment but missing community. And underneath it all, this quiet question: Am I even still a Christian if I’m doing this my own way?
I know what it’s like to sit in a pew (on the rare occasions I showed up) feeling like an imposter. The loneliness is real. You don’t fit in traditional church anymore, but you don’t fully fit in secular spaces either. You’re too Christian for your spiritual but not religious friends and too… complicated for the church people who seem to have it all figured out.
That lukewarm feeling? It’s exhaustion. From trying to hold it all together on your own terms while forgetting you were never meant to carry this alone.
The Mercy of the Second Word
“The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.”
Not condemnation. Not disappointment. The word. The same invitation. Again.
I took my foundation for granted. Built my own thing. Blended Christian language with practices that had nothing to do with the Bible. Genuinely believed my gut feeling was the same as God’s guidance.
By any measure, I should have been disqualified.
But God gave me a second (eh, maybe fourth at this point) opportunity. Time to actually wrestle with what I believed and why. Conviction that wouldn’t let me rest. And eventually, a church community that welcomed me back instead of condemning me.
That’s grace. Not just forgiveness, but another invitation.
The Thing You Don’t Know About Yourself Yet
I’m going to be uncomfortably honest now… this is me speaking as someone who lived this, not from some superior position.
I spent years believing that as long as I kept Jesus in the mix somewhere, I was still on a Christian path. That I could curate my own spirituality… keep the parts that resonated, set aside the parts that felt controlling, trust my intuition to sort out the rest. I genuinely thought my gut feeling was divine guidance.
What did that look like practically? It looked like praying but also hedging my bets with other spiritual stuff. It looked like “taking what resonates” from Christianity while quietly setting aside the parts that felt inconvenient. It looked like calling myself a Christian while basically making up the rules as I went.
Which is a very flattering narrative to tell yourself when you’re the protagonist.
What I didn’t see is that I’d made myself the final authority.
Like you, I didn’t do this because I was arrogant or rebellious. I did it because I was hurt. Because the institution that was supposed to point me toward God had, at times, pointed me toward pain instead. And when you’ve been wounded by the people who claimed to represent Him, of course you’d rather trust yourself. That’s not rebellion. That’s survival.
But even though the motivation was understandable, the outcome was the same. I was carrying wounds I hadn’t healed, using a compass that had been bent by pain. And I was using that bent compass to navigate my entire spiritual life.
Maybe you didn’t run in defiance. Maybe you drifted in confusion. Maybe you genuinely wanted to stay close to God but couldn’t stomach the institution anymore. Maybe you’re not building your own framework out of arrogance. You’re just trying to find any framework that doesn’t hurt.
I get it. I really do.
But pain makes understandable choices… that don’t always lead where we think they will.
When you become your own final authority, when you’re the one who decides what’s true based on what feels right, you’re not actually free. You’re just… alone. Navigating territory you don’t fully understand with a compass that’s been warped by wounds you haven’t addressed yet.
And when the storms come, what you built so carefully starts showing cracks.
When Obedience Gets Complicated
Nineveh was huge. “An exceedingly great city, a three day journey in extent” (Jonah 3:3, NLT). Massive, overwhelming, impossibly large.
When God finally gets our attention and says “let’s try this again,” the assignment doesn’t get smaller. But something in us changes.
When I finally walked back into church, I wasn’t suddenly qualified. I wasn’t confident. I was terrified. Terrified of them knowing where I’d been. Terrified of loving something so much, only to be hurt by it again. Terrified of being judged. Not because anyone was actually judging me, but because I felt like I should be judged. Because I was judging myself and projecting that onto everyone around me.
But I went anyway.
What happened next was beyond what I could have orchestrated, people who wanted to hear my story instead of condemn it. Recognition of gifts I didn’t know I had. A community that invested in me rather than keeping me at arm’s length.
“The people of Nineveh believed God” (Jonah 3:5, NLT).
The result was remarkable. Not because Jonah was impressive, but because God is faithful.
The Paradox You’re Living
Walking away felt like life. Building your own framework felt like strength.
But the cross stands as history’s greatest paradox: death became life. Weakness became strength.
What if spiritual independence that feels like freedom is actually rootlessness? You might not see it until the storm hits. Until the anxiety spirals beyond what your curated spiritual practices can handle. Until you realize you’ve been so busy searching for meaning that you stopped actually living.
That’s when you find out whether what you built can hold weight.
I had to face the uncomfortable truth too. I’d been calling the shots on my own spirituality. Not from arrogance, but from hurt. And hurt makes understandable choices. But understandable isn’t the same as wise. And self protection isn’t the same as freedom.
The Question Under The Question
Maybe you’re thinking what I thought: But you don’t know what I did. You don’t know how long I was gone. You don’t know how far I drifted.
And you’re right. I don’t know your story.
But I know Jonah’s. And I know mine. And I know the pattern: God doesn’t just forgive reluctant servants. He invites them back in. The same assignment. A second time. Not because we earned it back, but because He never stopped wanting us in the first place.
There’s a subplot in Jonah I’m still sitting with… about God’s patience with people who drag their feet. It’s not passive patience, either. Not God waiting around until we get our act together. It’s Him actively holding open a door we keep trying to close. Pursuing us through our avoidance. Preparing us through our failures. Teaching us that His plan can absorb our detours without being derailed by them.
(Read Jonah 4 sometime. God takes him to school about mercy. It’s uncomfortable and relatable.)
I wonder what Paul means when he talks about having “the mind of Christ” (Philippians 2:5, NLT). Not just rules to follow, but access to wisdom that doesn’t require abandoning our questions. A way of knowing what’s true… not just based on what feels right, but grounded in something more reliable than our own gut.
Which is… that’s another conversation. But it’s the one I wish someone had walked me through when I was convinced my intuition was all I needed.
The Unfinished Story
Coming back isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.
God didn’t rescue Jonah just so he could retire. There was more ahead. More learning. More opportunities to choose trust over self-protection.
I’m learning the same thing. Learning to forgive myself… not by minimizing what I did, but by accepting that grace actually covers it. Learning to receive from a church community rather than keeping my distance. Learning to trust that the foundation I once took for granted might actually be worth building on again.
And I’m learning that the cross isn’t asking me to go back to dead religion. It’s inviting me forward toward the real Jesus, not the version I thought the church distorted. Toward real freedom, not just a different set of practices I made up. Toward grace that actually transforms instead of just making me feel temporarily better.
Maybe the real question isn’t “Will God give me a second chance?”
Maybe it’s, “What will I do when He does?”
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Not as punishment. As invitation.
I wonder what word is coming to you. What step you’ve been avoiding.
I wonder what would happen if you stopped running. Even if it feels huge. Even if you’re not ready. Even if it means admitting your way of doing things might not be working as well as you thought.
Because God doesn’t just give second chances out of obligation.
He gives them because He actually still wants you.
Not the cleaned up version. The real one. The one who drifted. The one who felt betrayed and decided to go solo. The one piecing together their own spirituality because trusting authority felt too risky. The one who finally turns around and says, “Okay. I’m listening. I don’t have all the answers. Maybe I never did.”
That’s the one He sends to Nineveh.
And when you finally go… not because you’re ready, but because He’s calling… you might discover that remarkable things happen when God’s invitation meets human willingness.
Not because we’re impressive.
But because He is faithful.
If you need help taking a practical first step:
If reading feels possible: Open your Bible to Jonah chapter 3. It’s short, just ten verses. Read slowly and notice what happens when Jonah finally shows up. Pay attention to verse 10: “When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind.” That phrase, “he changed his mind.” Not because God is inconsistent, but because God responds to repentance. There’s something in that… that willingness to meet us where we turn around… worth sitting with.
If reading feels like too much right now: Just talk to God honestly about where you are. Something like: “I’ve been drifting. I don’t know how to come back without feeling like a fraud. But I’m tired of doing this alone.” That’s enough for today.
If you’ve been burned and aren’t sure you can trust again: You don’t have to trust the institution yet. Just stay open to the possibility that God isn’t the same as the people who hurt you in His name. That the cross stands outside of every dysfunctional church, every hypocritical Christian, every version of religion that wounded you. Good churches exist. Imperfect, messy, full of people who are figuring it out just like you, but not toxic. Not controlling. That’s the first step, just staying open to the possibility.
Notice how the story doesn’t end with Jonah’s obedience. Chapter 4 is still coming.
Your story isn’t finished either.
And remember, if you don’t have a Bible, you can read Jonah free online at Bible Gateway.
