Here recently, I’ve really enjoyed a podcast about the Titanic. Over the 13 episodes, it goes in depth into the giant ship’s design and construction. It discusses details about the passengers and crew. And it eventually covers the disastrous collision with the iceberg. As I listened to the final installments, I kept hoping it would end differently with everyone surviving. Of course, that’s not what happened.

One of the experts they interviewed for the podcast mentioned an anecdote stating that the designers spent two hours discussing carpet selection for one of the grand rooms but only 15 minutes deciding on the lifeboats. Many have disputed this as a myth, but if it’s true it’s a real shame. (The ocean liner had twenty lifeboats which could accommodate about half of the 2,000+ people on board. This was insufficient, but it met the maritime regulations of the time.)

Whether this story is truth or fiction, it highlights a prevailing human characteristic—all too often we concentrate on the wrong thing.

It reminds me of a different boat-related tale, but this one is about the prophet Jonah in the Old Testament. Many of us know the story: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach against their wickedness. He doesn’t want to go so he hops on a boat going in the opposite direction. God stirs up a storm, and the sailors dump Jonah into the water. Instead of drowning, God sends a big fish to swallow Jonah whole. He stays in the fish three days and nights, until he’s vomited onto the land. Then God gives Jonah another opportunity to obey, and this time he goes to Nineveh. The people repent and fast, and God relents from the destruction he had threatened.

It seems like a happy ending, then we come to chapter 4. Jonah is angry about God’s kindness when directed to people he finds undeserving. Jonah said, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

It’s a pretty jerky move. When Jonah was diving deeper and deeper into what he thought was going to be his watery grave, he was all about God’s mercy, but the Ninevites getting saved from annihilation? No way!

So Jonah went outside of the city to have a pity party. He made a shelter and sat down to watch what would happen to Nineveh. God sent a leafy plant to grow over his perch to give him shade. Verse 6 says, “Jonah was very happy about the plant.” But God sent a worm to eat up the plant so that it withered. As the sun beat down on him, Jonah grew hot, and he repeated his disgust with living when faced with such injustice. Then God countered by saying, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?”

Jonah cared too much about the wrong things and too little about the things that mattered. I want to be a person who counts the lifeboats. I want to avoid the biases and selfishness that keep me distracted from pursuing God’s perfect will. Lord, help me care about what matters most to You.