A change of heart: Jonah

Excerpts from the story of Jonah: (Message translation)

Jonah 1:1-3  One day long ago, God’s Word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.” But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from God as he could get.

 Jonah 2:4  I said, ‘I’ve been thrown away,
thrown out, out of your sight.
I’ll never again lay eyes
on your Holy Temple.’

 Jonah 2:8  Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
made it all the way to your Holy Temple.

 Jonah 3:1-2  Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.” ³ This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.

             Jonah is a story of grace, a story of God loving people not because of their actions but in spite of their actions.  Jonah hated the people of Nineveh so much that he would rather run away from God than go preach to them.  God gave Jonah exactly what he wanted.  Being in the belly of a whale (whether we understand this as a historical event or a parable) represents being as far from God’s presence as he could get.  But God did not leave Jonah there; when Jonah realized that he did indeed want to be in God’s presence God brought him back up from the depths.

Why did God ask Jonah to go to Nineveh if Jonah disliked the people there so much?  Why didn’t God ask someone whose feelings against them weren’t so strong?  Perhaps because it broke God’s heart to see someone that He loved so much carry the burden of hating other people.  God knows how much it messes us up inside when we carry hatred around.  By giving Jonah an assignment that he didn’t want, God was giving Jonah the chance to heal his heart.  Jonah continued to struggle with forgiveness even after his time in the whale:

Jonah 4:1-3 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.  He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah 4:11  But the LORD said, “…should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”  (NIV)

             Ironically, Jonah the Reluctant was the one of the most successful prophets of the Old Testament!  Isaiah or Jeremiah would have been overjoyed if the people had listened to their message, but Jonah reacted to success by wanting to die!

Nineveh was part of the Assyrian empire, a people who had been oppressing Israel for many years.  Why did God want Nineveh to repent?  Why didn’t God have Jonah’s attitude towards Nineveh?

God desired Nineveh’s repentance for the same reason that He wanted to heal Jonah’s heart.  God wants a relationship with us, even when we pull a Jonah and tell God to go away.  God wanted Jonah to experience the same feeling towards Nineveh the God Himself felt.

II Peter 3:9  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (NIV)

 Who is your Nineveh?  Is there someone in your life whom God is asking you to have a change of heart towards?