Post 10 for week 10 of 2019. I’ve been thinking more about how broken many of us are and how that can make us feel useless and worthless. God sees things differently. He looks at us through the eyes of a perfect Father who loves his children at all times.
I was angry at God for some time. Months trudged by and I sank into a period of deep depression where I wanted to die. I was done. My inability to fix the problem coupled with my guilt of not being a good mother overwhelmed me. How do you prepare for this? What should I have done differently?
I’ve said this before, and it’s still true. It’s hard to talk about the difficult things. It’s exhausting to have to explain and set up the scene so your listener will come to the same conclusion you did because your life depends on it.
If they don’t agree, what’s the purpose for continuing?
In his book, you’ll see that Jonah never recovered from his depression. He started out angry and stubborn and ended his story angry and stubborn.
Can God only use us when we’re all shiny and clean? Jonah’s a great example of a typical man with baggage and pain. He hated the Ninevites for what they’d done to his people. He may have had direct family members killed by them. We don’t know the details, but we feel Jonah’s deep-seated hatred.
God saw Jonah and picked him to deliver a message of life and deliverance. “Love your enemies as yourself”, Jesus told us. “Do good to those who persecute you.”
Did Jonah feel chained to his anger like I did? Did he really believe saying no to God was going to end well for him? Did he care? Probably not.
Jonah’s anger led him in the opposite direction of obedience and God let him go. Jonah’s disobedience threatened the lives of the innocent, and God let it happen. As the waves floundered the ship filled with desperate and terrified men, and the tempest blew their hopes far away, and the lightning illuminated their ravaged vessel, Jonah instructed the mariners to throw him into the sea.
Jonah was committing suicide by proxy. He would rather die than help the wicked and the guilty.
When the fish God sent swallowed him, what was he thinking? Was he elated that he wasn’t dead? At the end of his prayer, Jonah finally submitted and proclaimed “what I have vowed I will pay.” Desperate words for desperate measures. Because in the end, we don’t usually really want to die. We only think so until it becomes a certainty.
Jonah was not a reluctant prophet, he was a stiff-necked and angry prophet who God used anyway.
God had a message for the Ninevites and God had a lesson for Jonah. And by extension, a lesson for us today.
God wants to forgive and restore.
God wants willing vessels to deliver his message.
God can use you right where you’re at.
He always gets what he wants.
Forgiving others is a choice. Not forgiving others is also a choice.
We don’t hear anything more about Jonah. We don’t know if God ever used him to deliver a message again. I think aside from the lesson that God gives the wicked the opportunity to repent, he’s also showing us how very patient he is with us when we can be less than cooperative. He delivered Jonah from the belly of the fish, he gave him shade from the oppressive heat, and he patiently reasoned with him. Like a father with an intractable child.
This story always makes me think of that passage of scripture “don’t grieve the Holy Spirit.” Don’t you think God was deeply grieved by Jonah’s attitude?
My anger finally ran its course and my depression lifted. God was patient with me while I worked through all the emotions that threatened to drown me. My accusing words and my raised fist and my closed-up heart. He still used me through this process to proclaim the Good News even while I was immersed in my own disappointment and pain. Even as I clung to his promises with my last strength as a climber grasps the crumbling rocks with shaking fingers, feet desperately and blindly searching for a foothold.
This post is for you who are struggling today with anger and hopelessness and disappointment. Yes, God wants us to rest and trust and be filled with joy. But he also knows us intimately and loves us through our mess. Hang in there and crawl if you can’t walk. Be better than Jonah – choose forgiveness and allow it to do its work and grace to fill your eyes so that love is what you’re able to give.
Just like Jesus said, “I came for those who are sick and in need of a physician.”
Let his healing hands begin the healing process for you today.
