Wisdom 37 The Rest of the Story

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 37 The Rest of the Story

 Ah, but Jonah’s story doesn’t end on a good note. Yes, he turned to the Lord God and resolved to make good on his vows.   But there’s still a lot in him that needed resolving. The story ends with a question for Jonah. His answer remains unknown. I believe that was God’s purpose so that every succeeding generation would, through faith, be the resolution as they came into every next moment. This is important because Chapter 4 sends a warning shot across our bow and the bow of every believer. We’ll get to that shortly.

 God had used Jonah mightily. All of Nineveh repented, from its king to all its people. Public displays of sacrifice and thanksgiving followed. But Jonah was “greatly displeased and angry.” Listen to what he says to God about why he fled to Tarshish, “I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now Lord, take away my life, for it’s better for me to die than to live. The Lord replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

 Apparently, this didn’t have any effect on Jonah because he went to build a shelter for himself at the city’s edge to see his expectation of its destruction fulfilled. Now it is important to get this. Jonah is still waiting on Nineveh’s destruction. That’s why he came. That’s what he expected and that’s why he’s sulking. But, knowing Jonah’s condition, God had something else in mind. He provided a vine to minister to Jonah feeling the heat of the sun. At dawn He sent a worm that chewed and withered the vine. Then He sent a scorching wind that made Jonah faint. Now Jonah was really consumed with anger and wanted even more to die.

 God then asks him, “Do you have any right to be angry about the vine?” Jonah answers, “Enough to die!” Take note, he has reduced God to fit his definition and expectations. So, the answer he gets is, “You’ve been concerned about the vine though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.” Right here God hits him with a zinger, “Now Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned as well? Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Here’s my read on God’s confronting Jonah---"Are you saying a vine is more important than people? There are real, literally honest-to-God people in that city. People who live and breathe like you Jonah---Don’t you get that?”

 So, what is the warning shot across our bow? Believers don’t get perfect the day they accept the Lord. They get forgiven so they can start their new spiritual life afresh. Spiritual growth will find us having to get rid of attitudes, what the Bible calls strongholds, that we’ve constructed apart from God for self-protection and security. It takes time, facing self honestly and determination to let the Lord replace them all with His attitude of faith operating in every next moment. “Not my will but Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

 Remember when we talked about Jonah’s cultural conditioning, how he was raised to think of the Assyrians as the enemy? Perhaps Jonah’s attitude of their being the enemy was so deep in his heart (a stronghold) that he went to Nineveh thinking they are going to get what they deserve.   He fully expected to be able to sit and watch them all die, and the city destroyed. Would he not know from his heritage that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed? I can see him thinking ‘Oh boy, are those Ninevites gonna get their just deserts!’ Think of the stronghold that was for a Jew. It points to the ethnic strongholds all of us at one time or another lived by or still do. Perhaps it is a certain kind of behavior or appearance or mannerism or dialect or perception or social level or residence or car, whatever. The point is we’ve relied on a worldly standard (a stronghold) by which we judge the outward person we meet or see. It’s judgmentalism at the core. From time to time these strongholds may emerge in the way we view others. These need healing for us to mature spiritually.

 Believers need to grow and understand that it is the sinner part of ‘forgiven sinners’ that keeps us humble. We will sin again and again. That’s why we were given the Holy Spirit to grow spiritually, to make the Word come alive in us and be our Counselor in every next moment. All of us tend to lose our focus and need to be brought back on track. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2Tim.3:16-17).”

 We need to get rid of the expectations we place on God. We need to do the same with everyone with whom we come in contact. And we need to be realistic about ourselves. Life is lived never knowing what is going to happen in the next moment. Expectations and attitudes (strongholds) shut off the ability to rely on our faith in Jesus to discover how He acts through us in those moments to come. The same is true of false assumptions that negatively assess the worth in others. The same is true if we live by the opinions of others instead of being faithful. We don’t live by sight, we live by faith (2Cor.5:7). Faith is our spiritual sight that gets us to assess spiritually how we are to act in the every-next-moment atmosphere, the every-next-moment call to be faithful, the every-next-moment reality that presents us with a spiritual choice. That’s how the Lord redeems every next moment---through our faith in His presence to maintain our spiritual integrity in every next moment.