Great is Thy Mercy...Ours? Not So Much
Jonah 4: 10-11 Then the L ord said, "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?" (NLT)
The story of the Prophet Jonah is such an overwhelming story of the mercy of Almighty God. The reluctant prophet, Jonah would be consciously disobedient to the prompting of God:
The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Jonah 1: 1-3
We too can hear the word of the Lord only to hop the next boat out of the will of God; and why? Because we think we know better. Because we think that we have the situation correctly diagnosed and somehow, God does not or we dismiss the Word as not being from God. Jonah hated the Ninevites. They were a brutal people who had decimated and slaughtered the Jewish people. They were a savage people, who did not care to show mercy towards anyone. In Jonah's mind, they were not worth the redemptive power of God. God wanted to extend an opportunity for mercy to them and Jonah decided that he simply knew better.
Oh how that can still go for us today. We have reached our own pre-conceived conclusion about a situation or a person and it doesn't matter what God might have to say about it, we decide that we know better. That is very dangerous spiritual territory for a believer to be in. Not only to be outside of the will of God but to be in direct opposition to the plans He has set out.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6
A popular verse but one that many of us need to spend some serious time in prayer reviewing in our own hearts. When we think we have something or someone all figured out, we are indeed leaning upon our own understanding. The part of verse six that speaks to straight paths actually refers to making the direction we need to take known. Let's face it; we do not know which way to go in this life, only God does. So these proverbial verses are imploring us to lean on God, not ourselves if we do not want to get lost to step out of His plans and His will.
The real problem for us as Christians is knowing the voice of the Lord versus our own foolish pride. You see the devil will use whatever we are willing to give him. Samson gave him disobedience and the devil took his eyes out with it. David gave him lust and the devil took his kingdom with it. Judas gave him greed and the devil used it to betray the Son of God. I am sure that each of these men thought they knew what they were doing. They leaned upon their own understanding and directed their own paths however. They must have used the logic the world provides to justify their actions which were not within the will of God. Samson must have thought that he was above everyone in his might. David must have thought that his power made him untouchable. Even Judas must have had his own worldly reason for the betrayal. The Disciples actually thought that Jesus was going to deliver them from the oppression of the Roman Empire. Instead, after signing on to walk with Jesus, all He would talk about was being crucified for the sins of mankind. It must have occurred to Judas that because Jesus was not speaking about delivering them from the Romans, that He was not then the Messiah. Betrayal would soon follow. By the time Judas realized his error, it was too late:
When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility." Matthew 27: 3-4
And so our actions will also be our responsibility. It is vogue in human rationale to pretend that our part was less than it really was but God will not be fooled. It is common to pretend that we have no control over situations or even people we choose to associate with, but God will not be fooled. Not only our actions but our very words matter deeply and convict us:
But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12: 36-37
The power of life and death reside in the tongue. It is a weapon we wield with such recklessness and then pretend that gossip is counsel, or even worse, prayer. And in it all, where for the sake of God Almighty is our mercy? God reached down into the miry pit and saved our sin sick soul. He gave us probably multiple chances to take this free gift. He waited patiently while we continued to dance with the devil. Jonah would have multiple chances. He would be saved from shipwreck and be swallowed by the great fish only to spend three nights in the belly pondering his own disobedience.
We too can sit in that dark place as well; pondering how we got there. Unfortunately, the victim mindset of the world often gets in our way. We can start to look to blame everyone else for what we cause. We can sit in the spiritual darkness and somehow convince ourselves that it is the glorious light of Christ. Everyone else is suddenly wrong and only we have the corner on truth. Authorities can even become all wrong or in on it as well. It is suddenly a conspiracy that we sit in the darkness. Jonah thankfully would realize that it was his disobedience that led him to the dark place. He would pray and repent and God would deliver him out of the darkness yet again. He can do the same for us but we have to get to the place where we first recognize that we are even sitting in the belly of disobedience. And in order to get to that place, we must face our pride.
Remember, the devil will use whatever you give him and pride is one of his favorite tools because it blinds us to our role in our situations. We start comparing ourselves to other people so we can feel better about the role we play. We start to exalt our position as righteous. Here are the words of Jesus however:
He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. Luke 16: 15
