Wow, the last time I wrote I was feeling uncertain, feeling like Jonah, just wanting to obey…and I left it at that.
The job situation has worked out. Despite my uncomfortableness, I’m going to work everyday and dealing daily with situations that only in the world of logistics would bring me. God has never left my side, even though it sometimes felt lonely and so overwhelming, I am still here, thanking God that He is a merciful Lord and Father.
At the end of the book of Jonah, we see him so angry, “It IS right for me to be angry, even to death!” He screamed to God. I can’t imagine Jonah believed himself to be in the right when he answers the Almighty so rashly and foolishly, but he did it just the same. Why in the world did God not zap Jonah into oblivion? After all Jonah had been through, it appears he still does not understand God’s mercy. God would have been just to destroy Jonah on the spot, but he doesn’t.
I’m so glad God doesn’t decide to do away with us whenever we have our little tantrums because we do not understand His plan. I found myself several times over the past 6 months absolutely defying the Lord because I was so stressed out in my new position. I found myself screaming in the dark, crying, having fits behind closed doors, sometimes thinking I was going out of my mind and wanting nothing more than just to get out. A couple of times my wife believed I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I did realize I needed to go to the doctor and get some help. Besides that, I was acting crazy in the face of the Lord who had called me to a different ministry in life. Now, I’m so glad he has different plans for me and my family. I still get stressed from time to time, but God is there, He always was and is.
I’d like to think that maybe Jonah was pretty stressed out the day he answered God so angrily, maybe, at the time, he really did want to die. I think that maybe God understood this, and though He would’ve been just to destroy Jonah then and there, he was merciful to him and allowed him to continue in His work. How do I know this? Well, who else would’ve written the book of Jonah?
