Jonah 4 – the Right to Be Angry

"Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, 'It is better for me to die than to live.' But God said to Jonah, 'Do you do well to be angry for the plant?' And he said, 'Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.' "

Jonah 4:5-9 (ESV)

 

God's judgement is not built around our comfort, and His mercy takes many forms.

I love the story of Jonah. I'm surprised that I never made a post about it, because I loved studying it in college. Everyone in the Old Testament is so hard to relate to, because there are so many times where they experienced trial and "then he praised the Lord, and became obedient to Him." And I'm sure that there's a lot of struggle that we're not seeing there, and it's no secret that there are a lot of figures in the Old Testament that we see really wrestling with their sin – but there's something about the way that Jonah struggles that makes me relate so much. Jonah is so ridiculously dramatic and I love it. The entire book he does practically nothing but drag his feet and question God.

I'm not afraid to say that I get bitter with God. I've been really bitter with Him lately, and as much as I hate it, I know it won't be the last time that I am. All that my flesh wants is nothing that the Lord will give me sometimes, and it wants to reject Him because of it. Now like I've said before, while salvation is technically a one-time decision, we make the ongoing decision every single day to follow Him. And I still make that decision to follow Him all the time, even though I'm angry with Him. It's like I can step outside myself and know that I'm not right to be angry with Him - I can recognize that I'm just weak and selfish. Feelings are complicated, and even when they lie to us, we still have to pay the price of feeling them.

I'm not going through Jonah's entire story, but I did want to talk about the final passage of the book. Jonah is exceedingly angry that the Ninevites didn't get what he thought they deserved. And maybe he's even upset that he went on this entire journey just to see the wicked repent, and not suffer. Already, Jonah's clearly operating under pride and unrighteous judgement, but for the sake of discussion, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt – he's been through a lot. But what he says next is so much funnier in an easy-to-read version, because he just tells God to kill him. "Just kill me. It's better for me to die than to live." That is so dramatic. And I couldn't relate more. Not only that, but Jonah sets up a temporary home outside the city, just in hopes that God will change His mind or something and destroy it. He's operating completely on ill-intent, and he just wants to see others be destroyed.

Then, God grows a large plant next to him, to give him shade. And he doesn't just enjoy it – it's like a full 180 for him. He's exceedingly glad. "Maybe God is good!"

You'll never guess what happens after that. Before the sun could even come up, God destroyed the plant. Then just to really get His point across, He made the heat increasingly brutal. All of a sudden, Jonah's right back to the same attitude directed at God.

I want to say "imagine copping an attitude with the literal God of the universe," but I can't even call out Jonah here! Nobody can, because we do this exact same thing. We enjoy His blessings so much that their absence gives us what we believe is justification for getting angry with God. There's no pleasing us – good things will always either leave or change. We want something that's unrealistic – we want to enjoy the things that God uses to relieve the pain of sin, without having to worry about them being affected by the sinful world they exist in.

Is it possible that we underestimate the potency of sin, and overestimate the quality of our own judgement? Could that lead to unrighteous anger?

"Teach my heart to trust Your judgement before my own. Give me the ability to step outside myself when I'm angry with You."

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