July 31, 2008, Jonah and the Ninevites

I’ve been wrestling with my thoughts this afternoon, I’ve been convicted about the fact that I need to write as I feel the Spirit moving me to write. In the article below, “Doctor Results” I wrote about the frailty of life and how it can change in an instant. Before I changed it, I had written that we take the breath of life that God gives us every day and use it for our own gain and effort. Taking for granted the God of the Universe and wrinkling our noses up at taking 5 minutes with him.

I changed the last blog because I hadn’t prayed much about what I wrote the first time and I didn’t want to be condemning. As I began to pray, Jonah chapter 3 came to mind so I read it.
Jonah is told by God to go to Nineveh and proclaim to it “…the message I (God) give you.”

So, after Jonah has an encounter with a big fish that was not so pleasant, he is finally obedient to God and goes into Nineveh which is very large city. God was not pleased with Nineveh and Jonah tells them the message from God that they have 40 more days before they will be overturned (Jonah 3:4).

I thought to myself, what would I do if someone told me ...you have forty more days before a great tragedy will come to you. Would I believe them or brush it off?

It was interesting to me that the Ninevites didn’t ask, why? What have we done? They knew in their hearts exactly what the forty more days meant and turned immediately to repentance saying (Jonah 3:9) “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” Wise people.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way shape or form taking the place of Jonah in this story, what it caused me to do was say to God, “Yes, I will be obedient to say what you’ve put on my heart to say and what are the places in my life where you’ve just about had it with me?” I would much rather turn and take care of the issue than have God do it for me!

God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love which is the reason he sent Jonah to Nineveh in the first place. Check it out for yourself (Ex 34:6-7, Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:16-27, Psalms 86, Psalms 103:8, Psalms 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, and Nahum 1:3)

But make no mistake, had Nineveh reacted differently I’m sure the outcome would have been much different than it was. (Jonah 3:10) God has a way of getting our attention.