The Best Tact

The Lord made a gourd plant grow quickly over Jonah. This made a cool place for Jonah to sit and helped him to be more comfortable. He was very happy because of this plant. The next morning, God sent a worm to eat part of the plant. The worm began eating the plant, and the plant died. After the sun was high in the sky, God caused a hot east wind to blow. The sun became very hot on Jonah’s head, and he became very weak. He asked God to let him die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you think it is right for you to be angry just because this plant died?” Jonah answered, “Yes, it is right for me to be angry! I am angry enough to die!” And the Lord said, “You did nothing for that plant. You did not make it grow. It grew up in the night, and the next day it died. And now you are sad about it. If you can get upset over a plant, surely I can feel sorry for a big city like Nineveh. There are many people and animals in that city. There are more than 120,000 people there who did not know they were doing wrong.” (Jonah 4:6-11)

The reaction of Jonah to God's movement of grace: go outside the city and pout under a shelter he made with his own hands, waiting to see what will happen next. We don't get any impression that Jonah fully grasped what God had sent him to do in Ninevah, nor God's response to the people. What we do see is that Jonah was still trying to do things in his own power. He made the shelter. He wasn't 'comfortable' in what he had 'done himself'. We rarely are! We usually feel a bit relieved, but just as the sun beat down on Jonah under that shelter, we find our actions are 'insufficient' to bring us true satisfaction, peace, and comfort. God's actions are always amazing - he provided a swift growing gourd plant to cover the shelter and bring relief to Jonah. We should never be surprised when God takes the flimsy thing we accomplish and adds his blessing to it. 

The plant quickly died, leaving Jonah in a barren place, scorched by the sun. We should never be surprised when what appeared as a blessing doesn't 'last' as long as we'd hope. It is God we should focus on, never the blessing. He is the giver of the gift, but we sometimes become more excited about the gift than we are about the giver. Perhaps God was trying to show Jonah there was more than a little root of pride in his heart, or that he struggled with anger as a result. We don't know exactly what God is doing in our lives at times, because it seems 'contrary' to what we know about God when the blessing doesn't last. What he may be doing in the things we don't understand is working on the depths of our own heart. I doubt Jonah expected to go to Ninevah so God could purify HIS heart. He thought only of the 'mission' to share the message of God's judgment, not that he was struggling with obedience, pride, anger, or mistrust. God won't let us live long in a place of 'comfort' while there is still stuff in our heart that he needs to work on.

If God were to allow us to continue in our 'comfort' and never focus on what put us in that place, we'd never get beyond the struggles we have in our own heart. Jonah saw God as 'not doing what he said he'd do', all the while missing that God was doing bigger things in his own heart. We can find ourselves questioning what God is doing in or for others, often seeing them as 'contrary' to the way we thought God should act toward them, but we must never forget he is always focusing on our heart's condition. As much as we think someone might not 'deserve' the grace God gives, we must never lose sight of the need for grace we continue to need. God exposes more of our heart in our responses to someone else's blessings than we might realize. When he does, the best tact to take is to listen closely, act upon what he reveals about the condition of our heart, and then seek his plan for correction. It may not be 'comfortable', but it is necessary. Just saying!