God called Jonah. Jonah said no. Jonah ran away. God assaulted the boat with storms. Jonah was thrown overboard. God caught him in a fish. Fish delivered Jonah to the shore where he gave in to God's will.
Really only one answer here: God gets what God wants, whether you want it or not.
In my reply about God, I wasn't restricting it to a christian, or biblical context.
But if you want to talk about that story, I don't personally think that the "fish" part of it is really the point of that story, but more like: If God is Truth (and even truth) and there is a truth you need to face, you can attempt to hide from that truth, or go in another direction, but you can't really hide from it. Eventually life will spite you back out -- right into the situation that you need to deal with.
But, for me, the most interesting part of that story is that Jonah was angry at the thought that God actually did forgive and spare the people that Jonah brought the message to. Just because he was a prophet with a message didn't mean that he actually understood mercy and applied it fully to others, within his own heart. I think the lesson may be more about watching how we might personally behave like Jonah than about God's forgiveness of those that Jonah did not think were worthy of forgiveness.
Don't you think that people can believe in God, and pray and listen within the silence of their own hearts -- without it being necessary to make God fit a particular interpretation from bible stories?