In many ways, Jonah shows us how *not* to pray. Don’t focus so much on yourself and your needs. Pray focused on God and what God wants for your life. Don’t look down upon others in your prayers. Don’t make promises to God in order to get what you want. Jonah prays about being in the temple offering sacrifices and making vows, when what God wants is for him to be obedient and go to Nineveh. Jonah still doesn’t get it.
The book of Jonah is one of the best examples of storytelling in the Bible.
Jonah was commanded by God (1:1-2) to warn Nineveh the capitol city of Assyria, his enemy, of its great evil. Jonah, however, instead of going east fled west, boarding a ship heading to Tarshish in what is now Spain.