Read Jonah 4:1-11
By the time we get to chapter four, Jonah is having a pretty bad day. In fact, he’s had a pretty bad year. He has been caught in a violent storm, thrown into the sea, swallowed by a fish, and now he is responsible for helping his enemies escape the judgement they deserve. All he really wants to do is sit on the hill and think bad thoughts about Nineveh. My grandmother would say he is stewing in his own misery. What comes next is a rather interesting interaction between God and Jonah that stars a “leafy plant” and a worm.
I like to think of the plan that God provided as His final object lesson to Jonah. The shade the plant provides is God’s will. Under God’s will, Jonah is care for, protected, and soothed despite the trouble that have come his way. When the plant dies the bible says, “God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die…” To live outside of God’s will is much like Jonah with out the shade of the plant, he is dry, lifeless, and without hope.
The thing is… Jonah is mad at God for having compassion. Jonah wants justice. Jonah wants Nineveh to get what they had coming to them. He probably made a mental list of why they should be punished. It probably looked a lot like this:
- Nineveh rebelled against God.
- Nineveh disobeyed God’s commands.
- Nineveh didn’t have compassion on others.
- Nineveh thought solely of themselves.
- Nineveh didn’t value life.
Look at the list above and replace the name Nineveh with Jonah. The whole book up to this point hasn’t really been about what Nineveh has done wrong. It’s been about what Jonah has done wrong. As Jonah sits on the hill wishing he were dead, hoping for God to bring His judgment, I don’t think it ever crosses his mind that he is guilty of the very same faults that he is holding against Nineveh. By Jonah’s standards he is just as guilty as Nineveh is. If it were up to Jonah standards he should be punished too.
Jonah isn’t punished. Thankfully, just like Nineveh, God has compassion on Jonah. He even causes a plant to grow up and cover Jonah in shade. Despite Jonah’s bitterness and anger, God is still providing. Jonah can’t have it both ways. God doesn’t limit His compassion according to our wishes. We don’t get to choose, God chooses. What we have control over is whether we rest under the shade of God’s will or scorch in the heart of our own self-interest.
Questions
- What can we learn from this?
- What does this say about your own beliefs?
- Will you release your own self-interest to rest in the shade of God’s will?
Day 7 of 8 from the 2015 Mission Discovery Devotional
