“Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God.” Actually that is not what Jonah said. He was fleeing the Lord out of fear. The prophet, like all of us, was justifying his actions after the fact, making excuses for why he acted as he did. This story reminds us of the need to be honest about why we do what we do. My first spiritual director urged me to have “purity of intention.” The challenge for all of us: to work at discerning which of our intentions are are what I want and which are what God wants of me.