Recently, I have felt God tug at my heart to do some things that I don't really feel is the right timing, specifically not the right timing for me. I've been living in a lot of anger and frustration towards God because I felt like I had a right to be. So many things in my life this year have NOT gone according to plan and I thought, for once, maybe I deserved the right to have my own timing work out. You'd think I'd be more laid back by now. You'd think I'd be more okay with allowing God to take and use my time and life. But this is where God's conviction comes into play.
After I resentfully presented my frustration to God, I heard him tell me to read the story of Jonah. Now, if you're a born and raised Christian, you know the story of Jonah all too well. God calls him to save a large group of horrible people from Nineveh (if you watched the Veggie Tale's version it's the fish slappers). Jonah says "no" and runs away on a ship to the opposite side of the world. Then there is a storm, he convinces the sailors to throw him overboard and then he gets swallowed by a great fish. Then Jonah repents, gets thrown up, goes to Nineveh and tells everyone about God. Everyone gets saved. The End.
Okay, so this story can be easily overlooked as just a regular Bible story from your young church days. But God showed me something really interesting about Jonah. The very last chapter, chapter 4, is unnoticed a lot, because well, it makes Jonah look pretty bad. To paraphrase, Jonah says: "Okay God, I did what you called me to do, they did repent and now you are going to spare them?! I knew you would do that, that's why I didn't want to go". To which God responds "Do you really have a right to be angry?". Jonah then goes to the top of a hill, builds a shelter and pouts, asking God to let him die. So God taught him a lesson. He grew a plant for Jonah, to shade him, then he allowed the plant to die, taking away his shade. Again, Jonah dramatically asks God to let him die. And then God convicted him, by saying (paraphrased) "Jonah you are so worried about a plant which you didn't even grow or cultivate which was here today and gone tomorrow. Yet, you get angry when I have compassion for 120,000 people."
From our perspective, we could easily see why God would spare the people of Nineveh. He gave them a chance, and they took it. So, it is easy to look at Jonah, and think he's being over dramatic and ridiculous. But then I thought, what would it look like to be a Jonah in the year 2018. Well, think about it. God called Jonah to do something very specific, and Jonah didn't want to to do it, so he tried to run away from God. We can very easily do that in our hearts today. So there is one easy example. But happens when we do what God is calling us to do, and we still don't feel good about it, because it's not the way we planned it or wanted it to go?
Don't be a Jonah.
One of the fundamental problems with Jonah was that he was not okay with being wrong. He thought that he was in the right, so much so that God asked him "do you really have a right to be angry?"(Jonah 4:4). Jonah's plan was the tell the people of Nineveh about God and then watch God's wrath fall on them. When he found out things weren't going that way, he threw a temper tantrum. He was unable to look at things from the perspective of God because he was so caught up in his own way of wanting to be right. Ouch.
Don't be a Jonah!
Be okay with being wrong, when it comes to the promises that God has for you. Don't miss out on enjoying God's plan and purposes because you are so caught up in not being right. Notice, God still used Jonah to save many, even on the boat (Jonah 1:16). But also notice that at the end of the story it's not the man of God, the prophet, who was seeking God's heart, its the sinners, the ones who Jonah thought didn't deserve it. You'd think that God's messenger would be the one with the heart on God, but the truth of the matter is, Jonah missed out on so much of God's grace and joy because he was too focused on what he wanted rather than what God had for him.
How much do we do this in our lives? How much do we miss out on God's plan and purposes because it doesn't go according to our plan? I am not saying this is easy, and we don't even get to know what happened to Jonah. But what I am saying, is that we need to stop looking at our circumstances from our own perspectives, if we really want to follow Jesus, fully. What I am walking through, sometimes feels like the closest thing to hell on earth, but I am not going to make it if I keep looking at things through my own lenses. I need to stop, take a step back and look at God's perspective rather than my own.
I am not a Jonah.