Ah Jonah and the whale.....I mean fish. Why do Christians seem so peeved when people say whale? So Jonah is given an assignment from God, and assignment that he doesn't want. So he tries to hide....from God....for real. He joins a carnival or boards a ship or something.
Guess what happens? God finds him. He finds him and I think maybe he's a bit peeved because he sends a mighty storm that rocks the ship. The guys on the ship are all praying like crazy to their various gods to no avail. "IS everyone praying their hardest??" wait someone is missing....wheres Jonah, hes not praying.
They go and get him and he admits that indeed it is his God that is causing all of this craziness. He tells them that he tried to hide and asks that they throw him overboard to save themselves. AHHH at last, God will never find him at the bottom of the ocean....but a mighty FISH will. I mighty FISH sent by God to swallow him up and keep him alive for days and days.
As crazy as this seems its no crazier than anything else we've read. It you believe all the other stuff to be true, this is just another miracle. After a few days the fish vomits Jo and he relents and goes to do Gods work.
He heads to the town of Nineveh to deliver a message that in 40 days, really?, God shall lay the smack down on these people. Guess what happens? They totally freak out and repent. That never happens. God even seems shocked by it and decided not to smite or smote or even slew anybody. WOW.
Jo is not to happy about this though. He's got a lot of nerve doesn't he? After all of his hiding? So God decides to treat him a weird lesson thought the use of a gourd. As Jo is sitting in the desert feeling sorry for himself, God grows a giant gourd to shade him. Then he kills it and Jo is all sad and pittiful over the loss of this gourd. God says, "you are soooo sad for the death of a gourd you have only known for a day, but you would have me kill this huge giant city full of people??"
I think Jonah and the gourd is a better lesson than the whale? (sorry, fish)
Kings and Chron:
War and bad guys....war and bad guys....war and bad guys.....
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2 comments:
I've never known any Christian to get mad when people say whale.
I found it strange that although Jonah (admittedly God's prophet/servant) is running from doing what God wants him to do, and despite the storm, is sleeping. He must have some comfort that although God might discipline him in some way, he won't be killed. God is the God of second chances....and third....and fourth. Jonah gets a couple.
I would like everyone to re-read Jonah 3:9-10, please. Now, I'm not pretending to know the mind of God, and I don't want to encourage anyone in the wrong way, but this gives me hope as far as humanity and the book of Revelations. We've already read that as individuals God's salvation is only a prayer away. Here we see that as a people/species there may be hope as well. Maybe.
Exactly, Jonah is upset about losing a gourd he had for only one day, that he didn't even create. Yet he expects God to not forgive an entire city/people that he created and has had for a long time? I get the feeling God's way of helping Jonah see that point was very effective.
tomorrow, 2 Kings 15 2 Chron. 26 Isaiah 1-4
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