Yet this morning when reading Jonah 3, it hit me in a new way and I saw Jonah in a new way. Scroll down to read the chapter (very small, just 10 verses) and then come back.
Did you read it?
No really, read it again, slower.
Jonah preached a message of destruction and people immediately changed their ways and responded. Whatever Jonah's other faults were, he must have walked in God's power to have had so profound an affect on an entire city.
And I also find it interesting knowing that he avoided coming and later sits and complains . . . this is a guy with issues. Not just issues, VOLUMES.
All while preaching a message that any pastor hates to deliver. "You're on the wrong path. Your actions are leading you straight to destruction." As a pastor I must confess some messages are easier to preach than others. Some messages people respond to gladly and generally some messages are met with stone faced silence.
Jonah's message is usually one of them
And the temptation is for me as a preacher to preach the fun messages. The easy messages. I always thought of Jonah's story as a story that talked about not avoiding God's call. But it is also about not avoiding speaking the WHOLE of God's message. Forgive me Lord when I get it wrong. When I hedge. When I skip the painful parts.
The temptation is also to do with my ministry what I do with Jonah's story. To see the failures, the miscues and doubts and forget to read chapter 3 - forget to acknowledge when God's Word IS spoken. When people's hearts are changed.
Dear Lord, today during Lent I repent my silences. Those times when I feared other's reactions or doubted my inability. Let me not be Jonah - afraid, insecure and disobedient. Forgive me when I see only my failures and lack of ability. Forgive me when I fail to praise you and thank you for the growth and change I do see. Lord you are good and your mercy endures forever. Thank you for having mercy on me. Help me have mercy on myself.
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3 1-2 Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3 This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.
Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.
4 Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”
5 The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.
6-9 When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”
10 God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.
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