⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” – Jonah 1: 7-8

We are unsure why the sailors decided to cast lots. The casting of lots was an ancient practice of communicating with the “spirit world.” They would cast lots in hopes that God or a spirit would direct them to the answer. This means that the crew assumed this was a spiritual matter. The storm must have been raging incredibly strong for the sailors to assume the storm was a spiritual matter. After all, it does storm consistently over water.

To make matters worse, the lot falls to Jonah and they ask Jonah a series of questions. “What is your occupation?” We know from the book of kings that Jonah was a prophet. They had found their answer. A prophet was fleeing his command.

Casting lots seems crazy to us today. We communicate with God through prayer and scripture, but in this time this was common spiritual practice. When spiritual storms attack you, what spiritual practices do you employ to find the solution? Do you turn to prayer and scripture? This should be the common practice in our day, but truthfully it isn’t. It easier to turn to Facebook. It is easier to distract yourself from the problem. These sailors were not Hebrews, and they were not Christians as Jesus had not yet come. They were just basic, ordinary people. Even they knew this was a spiritual problem. How often do we miss the spiritual problems in our lives?

Our culture has become so distracted. One thing we learn from this story is that as everyday, ordinary people we will have spiritual encounters. We must not be so distracted that we miss them even if they are storms meant to teach us something new about God.