Today's Meditation - Thursday, October 29, 2020

 

Today’s Meditation – Thursday, October 29, 2020

Read Jonah 4:1-5

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. ²He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. ³And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

⁵Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

          As the king and the people of Nineveh prayed, God “turned from his fierce anger” and didn’t allow the people of Nineveh to perish, for they had all repented.  They all turned from their evil ways and from the violence that was in their hands.

          But….this was very displeasing to Jonah and he became angry.  We might rightly ask with whom could Jonah possibly be angry?  Could he be angry with himself for following God’s instructions and going down to Nineveh to preach to them?  Could he be angry with the people and king of Nineveh who turned from their evil ways?  Could he be angry about his journey and the ordeal he went through to bring salvation to the people of Nineveh?  Or was he angry with God for offering forgiveness to the people of Nineveh?

          He prayed to God saying, “Darn it!  This is exactly what I knew would happen!  You’d forgive them because that’s who YOU are and that’s what YOU do!  Just kill me now!”

          Wow!  And yet…don’t we, too, often think that it just can’t be possible for God to forgive “someone like that!”  And if God does, is that fair to the rest of us?

          All God could say to Jonah was, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

When I read Jonah, I’m reminded of the Grinch.  How he sat on the mountain pondering and wondering how the people of Whoville could be so happy.  Just the sound of their voices grated on his nerves.  The glittering tinsel and their bright sparkly lights made him all the more angry until his heart shriveled over the years.  

And Jonah went outside the city to sit and stew in his own juices of anger.