This week's blog is written by Pauline Lo Alker
Background
God gave Jonah a second chance to obey His command, and Jonah complied. During his three days' walking through Nineveh and the outlying villages, Jonah preached God's word of judgment and repentance. And all of Nineveh repented, "from the greatest of them to the least of them." When God saw how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring forth the disaster to them as He had planned.
What a Tantrum
"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." (4:1 ESV)
How incredulous!! By all measures, Jonah should have been extremely gratified that God had chosen him to be the appointed 'deliverer' of the Ninevites. But NO!
There was something about this whole matter that was eating Jonah inside. He was so exceedingly unhappy that his displeasure boiled into anger. He was actually angry with God.
Are you kidding me? What right did Jonah have to be angry with God? Well, let's hear what he had to say to God.....
"He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish....."" (4:2)
Do you believe this? Jonah was not only giving God the proverbial "I told you so!" he also wanted God to see that his quick 'exodus' to Tarshish was justified. Instead of coming clean with the true reason for his anger, he whined like a child throwing a tantrum!
Out of the Outflow of the Heart ....
Come on, Jonah. Why were you so angry? Were you mad because you thought God had wrongly and unfairly 'punished' you? You could whine; you could rationalize all you want; but you knew you couldn't hide what was in your heart from God.
The truth is, Jonah, you were angry because you couldn’t agree with God’s way of doing things. You were angry because God had given the gift of salvation to a people you found undeserving. You felt that it was not right for God to be sharing His compassion and love with people who were pagans. What you really wanted was for God to bring judgment to these people you hated. Take an up-close-and-personal look at your heart, won't you, Jonah?
"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45 NIV)
Finally, the Truth ....
And so Jonah finally came clean. He said that the reason why he was so quick in running away to Tarshish was because "I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster." (4:2b)
Ah, the truth, at long last! Jonah cleverly 'wrapped' eloquent words of praise around his reason for fleeing God's call - not out of fear that he would be ineffective or that he would be killed by the enemy, but fear that he would be effective!
When God rescued him from death at sea by the great fish, Jonah was thankful of God's compassion and mercy bestowed on him; but now that the same compassion and mercy was extended to others, he was resentful.
In fact, the repentance and salvation of the people of Nineveh was so upsetting and painful to Jonah that he would rather die than think about it. "O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." (4:4 ESV)
Imagine the depth and breadth of resentment, anger and hatred can actually cause one to choose death over eternal life through God's love of forgiveness and salvation!
So What? (What will I do with what I have read today?)
The shoking behavior of Jonah, one of God's prophets, is a sobering and somewhat frightening portrait of who we all are: filled with self-centeredness, hyprocrisy and anger!
Many people say that human nature is basically good; but the Bible teaches us that it’s not so because the world itself and all people "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23 NIV) The most basic manifestation of sin is anger and hostility -- the result of the conflict between God’s way and the world’s way.
Let's ask ourselves: Are there people we resent and would like to see fail? Are there people who have hurt us and on whom we'd like to get revenge?
It is so easy to see what is wrong with others in the world, but it is difficult to see what is wrong with ourselves. It is easy for us to understand what God teaches us to be, but it is often difficult for us to see why we must conform to what God wants us to be.
The saga of Jonah is about to reach its climax. So don't miss the firey sparks of the finale ....
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