27th.: Grateful For God's Mercy
Pa tooey.
Daylight.
The fish spat Jonah out.
Staring up at the sky, a voice,
"Arise, go to Ninevah ... and preach unto it the preaching that I bid." (Jonah 3:1-2)
This time Jonah obeyed God.
Jonah's preaching made the Ninevites contrite.
Jonah's preaching made the Ninevites contrite.
God therefore decided not to destroy them.
Nevertheless, Jonah was mad at God.
Jonah prayed,
“I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?
Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou are a gracious God,
and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repents thee of evil.
Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me.
For it is better for me to die than to live.” (Jonah 4:2-3).
At least Jonah is talking to God.
Jonah hated the Ninevites for their cruelty. He wanted to see them destroyed.
Furthermore, Jonah was ashamed to be a part of God's mercy to an undeserving people.
God then asked Jonah, "Do you well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4a).
Jonah said that he had every right to be angry (Jonah 4:9b).
We so often think that we know better than God.
Yet the Apostle Pauls gives us this insight,
"What if God, willing to show wrath ... endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction" (Rom 9:22).
The Ninevites deserved to be destroyed.
But God wanted to show mercy. Should not we be grateful when God shows his mercy, to others
- and to ourselves.
“’As I live’, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’” (Eze. 33:11)