Reflecting the Image

Scripture:

Jonah 4:2–4

2 He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.

3 And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 And the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (NRSVUE)

Observation:

Jonah had been sent by God to the people of Nineveh. He was to warn them of coming judgment. The people heeded the words of Jonah and repented, only this seems to have made Jonah angry.

Suddenly, Jonah is making excuses for his own disobedience. He seems to be telling God that he ran away to Tarshish because he just knew that God would forgive these people! The irony is simply oozing out of his accusation against God.

Pouting, he complains that God is gracious and merciful! This is soon after Jonah himself has experienced the grace and mercy of God after spending three days in the belly of a great fish. His complaint builds. God is slow to anger, “abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” Throughout his own ordeal, Jonah has experienced the character of the LORD, and now he is frustrated that this same God is consistent in His dealings with the Ninevites.

In a strange way, Jonah’s complaint becomes a beautiful confession of the character of God. He knows what God is like. That’s the problem! The grace Jonah gladly received for himself is now being extended to people he does not believe should receive it.

So angry is Jonah that he declares it would be better for him to die than to see God show compassion on the Ninevites. God patiently listens to his griping and then responds with a question:

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

Maybe we shouldn’t answer that question too quickly. Maybe we should let God ask it of us.

Application:

How easy it is for us to forget the love and compassion that have been shown to us by our Heavenly Father. None of us have lived lives that make us worthy of the love and forgiveness bestowed upon us through the gracious work of Jesus Christ. And yet, judging others comes far too easily.

We can read this story and think how ridiculous it is for Jonah to be angry, but if we forget the character of God, we just might find ourselves in the same situation. We want to experience the generous nature of God, but sometimes we don’t want them to experience it.

This passage tells us so much about God’s nature. Our LORD is full of grace and mercy. That’s a beautiful reminder of the ways in which God reaches out to us, even when we don’t deserve it. God kept reaching out to Jonah even as he ran away toward Tarshish. Jonah did not deserve rescue, and yet God brought about his salvation in a miraculous way. So when Jonah says that God is gracious and merciful, he knows it is true. He has experienced it for himself.

I love this description of God as being slow to anger. Look at everything the LORD had been putting up with in relation to Jonah. God had sent Jonah to Nineveh, and Jonah ran in the opposite direction. Still, God didn’t give up on him. He is slow to anger and “abounding in steadfast love.”

Did you catch that? Steadfast.

This is really good news for those of us who sometimes wonder whether we’ve ruined God’s purposes for our lives because we didn’t immediately follow where He was leading. God doesn’t give up on us. His steadfast love continues to reach toward us. God can take the tattered pieces of our lives, including the consequences of our own choices, and continue His gracious work within us.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: if God wants to do this for us, He wants to do it for others too.

Jonah had experienced God’s rescue. Now he was watching God extend mercy to Nineveh, and he didn’t like it. He knew the character of God from his own experience, but he didn’t yet share God’s heart for others.

Accepting the grace of God means stepping into the stream of His steadfast love — and that stream doesn’t flow only toward us. We can’t say, “This is for me, but not for them,” because that would deny the very character of the God whose grace we have received.

The more we walk in grace and receive grace, the more we are transformed by the presence of that grace in our lives. The character of God revealed in Christ begins to be reflected in and through you and me. We become more gracious. More patient. More merciful. More capable of steadfast love.

And when we see God’s patient grace at work in the life of someone we don’t think deserves it, perhaps instead of becoming angry, we should remember:

Neither did we.

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

God’s grace is not for me but not for them.

It’s grace.

Prayer:

Lord, it’s so easy to become judgmental. Please help me to be transformed by Your grace so that my life reflects Your character. May I become gracious, patient, and abounding in steadfast love toward those who may not appear to deserve it, remembering how gracious and patient You have been with me. Amen.