Surprised by Jonah

One of my New Years resolutions was to study one minor prophet per month through the year.  Let me tell you, they are HEAVY.  There's a lot of judgment and justice in those small books of the first testament.  Many days I just flip back over to the Gospels for a relief from the weight of it all.  If you have lost the joy of your salvation, spend a little time in the first half of the Book to remember all that you've been saved from.  The grace and mercy of Jesus to take all that on Himself for us is staggering, and it reminds me just how good it is to call Him my Savior.  

One book that's been a surprise to me though is Jonah, the fifth minor prophet I'm reading in the month of May.  I've been in Sunday School since the Sunday after I was born and believe me, we've covered Jonah many times.  But the Bible is living and active and always revealing more and more the deeper you study it.  This month in Jonah has proven that yet again.  It's all of 4 chapters long, so I encourage you to stop and read it.  If you read it skip ahead to where it says "resume here."  

If you don't want to read it, here's a recap:

God called on Jonah to go preach repentance to the city of Nineveh because God had become aware of their evil ways.  Jonah, however, had a massive grudge against the Ninevites, so the last thing he wanted was for them to some turn to God and receive mercy.  He decided he'd rather die than to minister to "those people", so he found a boat embarking on a trip to Tarshish in the opposite direction of Ninevah.    
    Now God decided to test if Jonah was being honest about preferring death over preaching to people he hated and He did so by causing a storm on the waters that threatened the lives of everyone aboard.  His fellow passengers were not followers of God but were terrified enough to believe it was A god, not knowing THE God.  

Photo Cred Ruth Camp

 
    Jonah reasoned to them that the storm that was sinking their boat was the anger of his God and begged them to throw him overboard to save themselves.  However, they could not imagine what the anger of a God Who was sinking their boat would be like if they were to take the life of another man.  So they tried everything to just get back to shore, and when they couldn't they begged the God of Jonah to forgive them for what they were about to do.
    Then they threw him overboard.  
    The seas calmed and a giant fish found Jonah to be a good meal.  Jonah sat in the digestive tract of that fish for three - count 'em - three days.  And what do you know... Jonah didn't want to die after all.  He repented and God made the fish burp him back up.  Jonah made his way to Ninevah and preached repentance. And what do you know... the entire city of Ninevah responded to the Jonah's message.  The city officials ordered a fast and repentance and the city of over 100,000 people was spared.  
    God was pleased.
    Jonah was angry.  
    He never wanted God to be merciful to "those people".  He wanted them to pay for all the evil they had done to the Jewish people.  So he again wanted to die.  (At this point, I'm guessing Jonah was a bit of a drama queen.  Feel free to roll your eyes like I did.)  Jonah headed to the desert to scorch to death, but God made a plant grow overnight to give him shelter.  The next day God made it die, and guess what?  Turns out Jonah didn't really want to die, because he was mad about God taking away his shelter.  
    (I mean really... this guy!)
God reminded Jonah that this was God's plant and He could make it grow or make it wither if He wanted to much like the city of Ninevah.  

RESUME HERE

Now here are a few good lessons from the story of our drama queen, Jonah. 

First, people are far more willing to accept God than we give them credit for.  An evil city with abhorrent practices heard the message one time and did a complete 180-degree turn.  Here we are... called by God to continue the ministry of Jesus until He returns by proclaiming good news to the poor, recovering sight to the blind, and liberating captives, and we sometimes act like we know how people will respond if we do that.  We assume they'll be offended or angry or violent, but when God says go and tell we can leave the results up to Him. 

Second, servants of the Most High God don't have a say in whom they will minister to.  My dear friend Nora who ministered in Australia for decades has reminded me on more than one occasion that we who serve the Lord do not have the luxury of liking or disliking people.  There are only people - people God called us to serve.  Could a slave say to their master, "I don't like your friends, so I'm gonna sit this dinner service out."?  Could a servant say to their master, "your friends are annoying and they can pick up after themselves."?  NO.  We're called to serve, and not because we have to but because we love our Master.  We serve because He said "Serve."  It doesn't matter what your grudge is, what they've said about you.  It doesn't matter how they've offended you or used you.  If God says to serve, we serve whomever, wherever regardless of who or what we like.  

Man, I hate that part.  That's hard.  Because people are... well... sometimes they're difficult or irritating or ungracious about what you're trying to do to help them.  Still we serve.  

Finally, can we just all agree on this... Don't say you wanna die if all you want to do it throw a fit.  I mean, come on!