Day 12: Could God Use this Man?
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1 Jonah was furious. He lost his temper.
2 He yelled at God, "God! I knew it when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
3 "So, God, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"
4 God said, "What do you have to be angry about?"
5 But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
Jonah 4:1-5, from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language.
Too many times, it would appear, God finds the wrong people to use. How could God ever make a prophet out of a man like Jonah, who loses his temper and gets not merely angry but “very angry,” and that even with God! I am not sure I want to hire such a pestilent staff; but God did, and sent Jonah to a tough people like the Assyrians. I am not sure that a soft and romantic prophet like Hosea would have been the right messenger to a people like those of Nineveh, in the same way as I doubt that unstable Mrs Hosea would have lasted a week in the hands of Jonah.
8 The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"
9 Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?" Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!" (Jonah 4:8-9, from THE MESSAGE)
God does not always choose the 'best,' but He makes the best out of those He chooses. God always knows who is best to be sent where.
In spite of however we might describe Jonah's erratic ways, that man knew his God very well. Too many messengers do not know the God for whom they run. Jonah could say, “for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful” (Jonah 4:2, KJV). Jonah knew his Boss well, which was why he could get as frank and vocal and bold as he often got with Him. O, how I long to know Him too, and be able to speak as confidently as Jonah, “I knew that thou art a gracious God.”
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