A few years ago, I had the privilege of leading the congregation from North Christian Church through the Book of Jonah. To date, it has been one of the most enjoyable series I’ve ever taught. In fact, to the students’ great joy, the prep school still keeps the age-appropriate version of the series in rotation. It’s a relatively short book in the Bible, but it is chalk full of wonderfully edifying lessons - some concerning blessings while others concerning judgment, all relating somehow to mercy.

If you haven’t read the Book of Jonah in a while, I encourage you to do so now (this blog isn’t going anywhere). The rest of my writing here will prove much more impactful if you do choose to read it. It’ll be worth your time. Trust me.

“Ho hum…I’ll just wait right here until my readers finish up with Jonah…”

— me, to myself

OK…you’re back? Good. I hope you enjoyed the book. Depending on your personal experiences, your predisposition towards either blessing or judgement, or even your own current mood, your takeaways will differ each time you read the book. That’s one of the things I generally love about the Bible - every read reveals something new! Even so, most books elicit common emotions from all of us, regardless of who’s reading it.

Jonah never fails to make me ponder honesty and transparency before the Lord. You can say what you want about him, but Jonah doesn’t hide his emotions from God. In fact, he puts them on full display, acting out his unholy malcontent. Have you ever done that? Have you ever pouted like Jonah before the Lord? I have. It’s silly, but we are silly, aren’t we??? Indeed.

As you just read (I hope), Jonah, a prophet, ran away from the direct command of God. Yowza! Don’t act shocked, my friend, we do it all the time! If you disagree with me, then you must be reading a different Bible than I am. In any case, I hope we can agree that Jonah’s flight from God landed him in the belly of a great fish for three days with plenty of quiet time to contemplate his error. As the story goes, he recovers to the degree where he follows the original command to warn his archenemies, the Ninevites, to repent, lest they endure God’s impending judgment. Here’s where the story gets really interesting, at least to me (as if it weren’t already interesting enough).

In the final chapter of the book, we see Jonah waffling, torn between what he knows is the right thing to do and his contradicting emotions. I think it’s fair to say that this last sentence describes the vast majority of Christians. We’re all wafflers, aren’t we? To help guide you through this passage, I’ve added comments in brackets.

When God saw their [the Ninevites, Jonah’s enemies] deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. [Jonah’s emotions overran his mercy.]

He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. [Jonah’s honesty is inspiring. If only we could all be this honest before the Lord always!]

“Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” The LORD said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?” [The Lord is calling Jonah to the carpet regarding his ungodly drama, saying, “Step back and look at the big-picture here!”]

Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. [The Lord God proves Himself merciful once again to Jonah, and Jonah is happy about being the receiver of it, though he’s still pouting, proving himself partial.]

But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.” [Here we go again with more drama.]

Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” [“Step back!”] And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” [While Jonah has been open/honest about his feelings before the Lord (which is a very good thing that we all can learn from), he still needs to learn a big lesson about mercy. God preconditions his soul and then closes with divine perspective on mercy.]

Then the LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

— Jonah 3:10-4:11

The fact that Jonah seemed to fail miserably isn’t the point of my writing this blog entry. In fact, if we’re honest with ourselves before the Lord, it just means that Jonah is someone we can relate to, personally. The point is that Jonah was at least being up front and honest about his emotions. He wasn’t pretending he wasn’t angry about the goings on. In fact, he was wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

Even when our emotions are displeasing to the Lord, it is best to be honest about them. If we pretend to be happy when we’re angry (because we suppose our facade will somehow please the Lord), or vice versa, we have stymied our own spiritual growth. One of the most debilitating things we can do to ourselves is put on a show for the Lord. “for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). If nothing else, Jonah was really honest about his unhappiness. We can learn a lot from him and how God used his honesty as a platform to teach him mercy.

We’ll never learn a thing if we’re not first really honest with God. What good is any lesson set before us if our perspective is wrong? A house built on sand rather than bedrock will never stand the test of time, will it (ala Matthew 7:26-27)? Perspective is everything when it comes to spiritual growth.

We’re human. We’re flawed. We get angry when we shouldn’t. We’re happy when maybe we shouldn’t be. We let our emotions run wild and we contend with God for trying to reel us back in. This is life - the ebbs and the flows, the ups and the downs. Some days, we sleep in the bow of a ship on rough seas (Matthew 8:24; Jonah 1:5), other days we’re the ones looking to throw someone overboard (Jonah 1:15).

It’s not what we feel that’s most important before the Lord; rather, it’s what is right. The good Lord can and will work with the latter. Wisdom isn’t getting better at pretending, it’s abiding in humility, being totally openhearted before the Lord. It means being honest about our emotions, even when we know they’re technically awry. Like any good husband, our Great Husband, Jesus Christ, simply wants His Bride to confide in Him, to be vulnerable, even.

In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.

— Acts 24:16

I suppose if Jonah hadn’t at least been honest about his emotions to start with, the book written after his name would likely be significantly longer. Might we do well to ponder the same things regarding our own life story?

Love in Christ,

Ed Collins