Friday,
February 24, 2023
This change of plans greatly upset
Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to
the Lord about it: “Didn’t I
say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and
compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just
kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead
than alive if what I predicted will not happen.” The Lord replied, “Is it right
for you to be angry about this?” Then
Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as
he waited to see what would happen to the city. And
the Lord God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it
spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very
grateful for the plant. But
God also arranged for a worm! The next
morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered
away. And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a
scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The
sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than living like
this!” he exclaimed. Then God
said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” “Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to
die!” Then the Lord said,
“You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But
Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to
mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I
feel sorry for such a great city?” Jonah
4:1-11
Jonah was attempting to float an argument that never floats, that his
anger was justified. He was angry at God
for sending him to Nineveh, an arch-enemy of his Jewish heritage. Jonah knew it was possible that city might
respond to God’s sovereignty, repent, and be saved. And that was the last thing Jonah
wanted. He was angry at the Ninevites
for their atrocities on his people. He
didn’t want God to forgive them; he wanted them toasted…extra-crispy.
This look into Jonah’s character is also a peek behind our curtain. We are not at all different from Jonah,
making excuses for our bad behavior, sulking when God doesn’t incinerate our
enemies, and blaming God for the awful mess that we have created for the next
generation. We respond with ground troops
or drone strikes.
On a personal level we turn to Jonah’s shade bush for comfort: drugs, alcohol, or building a bigger and better
(and much more lucrative) mousetrap. And
if that doesn’t work to soothe our pouting curmudgeon ways, we settle for
making everyone else around us miserable with the same excuses Adam and Eve
gave about their rebellion; they blamed God.
Asked by God to account for his behavior, Adam replied:
“It was the woman you gave me who
gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”
Genesis 3:12
Jonah’s life was many generations removed from the Garden of Eden, but
nothing had changed about rebellion against God’s ways. And it still hasn’t to this very moment. The prophet predicted that. Preaching about why a Messiah would have to
die for our Jonah attitude and ways, Isaiah said:
All of us, like sheep, have strayed
away. We have left God’s paths to follow
our own. Yet the Lord laid on
him the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:6
For You Today
This Lenten season, stay away from Jonah’s bush of
complaints; instead, hang out with the Psalmist:
Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Psalm 37:4
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper on
today’s topic, explore some of these:
Fall - Redemption - Obedience and It's Not Easy Being Green
Images: Title Via WikimediaCommons Images without
citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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