4/23/11

Remember when?

Wouldn't this be a lovely addition to your baby pictures.  Face it, we all do foolish things; we all make many, many mistakes over the course of our lifetime.  Just one more to add to the list.  Even as adults we continue to make mistakes, remember Rhoda in the book of Acts (Chapter 12).  She went to the door and when she heard Peter's voice, she didn't open the door and went inside to tell everyone instead.  I have always enjoyed this one, but somehow this passage from the book of Jonah came to the forefront of my mind.

Jonah 4:1-11 (WEB)

1) But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

2) He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

3) Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4) Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5) Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city.

6) Yahweh God prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine.

7) But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered.

8) It happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9) God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.”

10) Yahweh said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.

11) Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”



Jonah was a character!  When God told him to go to Nineveh, he disobeyed.  It took being swallowed by a really big fish to make him change, but finally he obeyed and went to Nineveh and preached God's message of repentance.  To Jonah's surprise, Nineveh listened!!!  Instead of being happy about this, Jonah went outside the city and sat down, awaiting its destruction.  Why?  Pride, arrogance and just plain stubborness are the best answers I can come up with.  He cared more for himself than even the young, who don't know their left from their right hand.  Baby pictures remind us of what we used to be like and that can be very cute, but stubborness to the will of God is not something I would like to be remembered for.