Perhaps Jonah chapter 4 is one of the weirdest chapters in the Bible. Here we have Jonah, a prophet, angry because God relented and turned his wrath away and was gracious and compassionate. And then, when God allows a big leafy plant to grow up and provide Jonah with shade, and then just as quickly, withers the plant, Jonah is furious. And this whole time God was just trying to get Jonah to be concerned about 120,000 "Ninevites" living in spiritual darkness. I can almost picture God saying, "JONAH!!!! I'm trying to show you my desperate concern for these people who are so lost... and what are you concerned about?"
Ahhh... aren't we like Jonah too often? Hopefully we aren't ANGRY when God is merciful, but its way too easy to get caught up with this inward focus and with our concerns and our comforts and our wants and our desires and our "needs" and meanwhile, God is inviting us to join him. He wants us to be concerned about the lost around us... to love them... to be burdened for them.
I love this sooo much. It really is so convicting. What am I concerned about and distracted with while God is jumping up and down, waving, trying to get my attention and capture my heart to transform it into one that reflects his for the lost? And what about your great city? My great city? The great city where God has placed you... what of that city? Where is your heart?
What if God were trying to tell us of his desperate concern for the lost and then turned and asked us, "What have you been concerned about?
Maybe God was just as concerned about saving Ninevah as he was determined to rescue Jonah from his own selfishness. Maybe the 120,000 people in Ninevah were a way of getting Jonah to see God's heart. And that, that... is just so encouraging to me. God isn't simply in the business of saving souls "out there," but he's also so interested in transforming lives "in here"... in the Church. And I simply love that.
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