Jonah and me

I recently read Jonah 2. I’ve read it before and I’ve heard the story since I was a child in Sunday School. There were no surprises and I found it interesting in an intellectual sort of way. I read the notes from the NET version in my Bibe app, to see if there was more to discover. Jonah prayed to God and it seemed more about Jonah than God. Jonah gives God credit but Jonah never says he is sorry for disobeying. Disobedience never even comes up. Yet God commands, and the Large Fish spits Jonah onto dry land. I read, the story seemed the same, I was done.
Then I read part of the book “A Life of Obedience” by Andrew Murray. There God fleshed out the concept of disobedience more concretely for me. Murray began the section I read with the idea of obedience unto death. Not an easy concept to grasp -especially in my comfy, sheltered American life. Murray encourages uncovering specific areas of disobedience with the help of the Holy Spirit and then asking for forgiveness → no general ‘I am sorry for my sin,’ but more along the lines of listing areas where I know I grieve God because I am choosing my own selfish way.
Murray states, ” Christ revealed the new law of love. To be as merciful as the Father in heaven, to forgive just as He does, to love our enemies and do good to them that hate us, and live lives of self-sacrifice and benevolence—this was the walk Jesus taught on earth …. Christ spoke much of self-denial. Self is the root of all our lack of love and obedience. Our Lord called His disciple to deny himself and to take up his cross; to forsake all; to hate and lose his own life; to humble himself and become the servant of all. He did so because self-will, self-pleasing, and self-seeking are the source of all sin.”
The phrase that first grabbed me was “live lives of self-sacrifice and benevolence.” Don’t get me wrong, I want to be nice and help others, be benevolent. I think Murray is stating something much greater, that becomes clearer, I think, when he states “self-will, self-pleasing, and self-seeking are the source of all sin.”
In Jonah 2, Jonah’s prayer has a lot of “I” Statements and declarations. His prayer truly has the allusion of seeking God’s help and yet it seems an awful lot about Jonah.  I wonder if my prayers appear that way to God. My heart is to follow Christ, to be completely obedient, to bring Glory to God Almighty through the life I live. How that fleshes out needs to be examined. It’s not easy asking the Holy spirit to identify areas of my life where I follow self-will, and have been more concerned with self-pleasing and self-seeking then living a life of self-sacrifice and benevolence. God is calling and I need to be obedient. If I do not obey, if I claim it’s too hard, or takes too much time, or that’s just for those ‘radical Christians,’ I am disobedient. Murray states “when self-will is allowed to assert itself and we make provision for the fulfillment of its desire, we are guilty of disobedience to His commands.”
My will complains its discomfort, my soul declares its commitment to a Holy and Loving God. Thanks Jonah for the lesson,