Thursday, February 5, 2015

Oh, I meant to...

write yesterday, but it was Bible Study day and I had to do my obligatory house cleaning.  I didn't exercise yesterday either.  As it was, by the time I had showered, shaved, primped and primed I didn't even have time to grab a bite to eat.

I managed to set up our TV tray desks, and give a quick glance at what we were going to study as my study companion walked up to my front door.

I think I've mentioned the book we are studying, It's called "Imitate Their Faith", and each chapter, or so is about a particular personality in the Bible.  We've Studied such people as Abel, Noah, Ruth, Samuel, Elijah, and Mary.  I feel like I know these people, oh, there are so many questions I want to ask them some day.

However, my most favorite person of all we've studied, and the one I'm most like, is Jonah.  I simply don't want to do things that are unpleasant, especially if I'm not given a choice and 'told' to do them. Hey, ask me, and 99% of the time I will do my best to fulfill whatever chore you would like done. But, make me do it, and I will (probably, 99% of the time) eventually get the job done...but I won't like it.

And, so it is I'm exactly like Jonah.  When God gave him an unpleasant job to do, what did he do?     Why, of course, he ran away...as far as he could go.  As we all know...he ended up in the belly of a fish.  Now, there's a punishment for ya'.  All I'm sayin' is if God gives you a job to do you dang well better do it.

So, Jonah eventually did as God requested, he went to the awful, evil city of Nineveh to give them a message that they were going to be destroyed.  He needed great courage and faith to spread this news, and being a stranger in a strange land, he had no idea how this message would be received.  These folks could become an angry mob and...well, let's not go there.

To his surprise, the folks of Nineveh took his message to heart and repented, and God in His mercy spared the evil city.

Spare the city! This was not what Jonah thought God would do.

Did Jonah take this well, nope, he went off in a huff, somewhere in the mountains that over looked the city, where he sat down and  pouted.  He built himself a shelter, and hunkered down in a snit.  It was hot, dry, and there was very little shade to protect Jonah from the sun.  God provided Jonah with a quick growing bottle gourd plant that provided shade for this angry, disappointed man.  However God then sent a worm to attack the bottle gourd, and the plant died.

Boy, this did not sit well with Jonah...He was even more angry with God and said "I have rightly become hot with anger, to the point of death."

Don't you think by now God would have been saying..."Okay, Jonah, I give up...you are a hopeless individual...sit out here in the sun...I'm done with you."  And, don't I think sometimes He says to me, "Okay Sandra, I give up...you are a hopeless individual...I'm trying to teach you a lesson...you simply refuse to listen...I'm done with you."? Thank goodness, God's not like that.

Yes, sometimes it takes a whop upside the head for me to finally get the message,
but just like Jonah, God in his infinite mercy, quietly repeats the message.

What Jonah failed to understand was that by giving the people of Nineveh God's message, he was able to save many, many souls.  So, patiently, (again) God explained that just as he (Jonah) was angry, disappointed and feeling sorry for himself over the loss of the gourd plant, He (God) could have remained angry and disappointed with the city of Nineveh and destroyed it even though they repented.

Instead He told Jonah..."You felt sorry for the bottle gourd plant, which you did not work for, nor did you make it grow; it grew in one night and perished in one night.  For my part, ought I not to feel sorry for Nineveh the great city, in which there exist more than one hundred and twenty thousand men who do not at all know the difference between their right hand and their left, besides many domestic animals."

In other words, It was God who was in control of not only the gourd plant, but also the city of Nineveh, Jonah was just the vessel by which the city was saved.  It was God's mercy that saved the city, and Jonah as well.

I have to ask myself why I always want to be in control, when my life is already written in God's book.  Oh, I'm so much like Jonah, I stomp my foot, and snort, and pout unwilling to accept God is in control, and he knows what's best for me.

I hope I learn my lesson before I end up in the dank, dark and probably very smelly belly of a fish.


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