I knew You were going to do this!

And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. – Jonah 4.2

Jonah is a conundrum to me. I don’t know what to make of him. The more times I read the book the more reasons I find not to like him. He runs from God, but to be honest I can understand that. Ninevah was a scary place. Then he has the whale thing and expresses some faith in God. After that I think I would make my way to Ninevah.

So he does the job. He peaches. The city turns to God.

Excitement – right? Amen and praise the Lord – correct?

Not so much.

‘I knew before I got on that boat that you were going to do this God.’ The problem is that he wasn’t excited – he was angry!! ‘I knew’ You’d do this, that’s why I ran for Spain.’ The next day Jonah spends the day moaning because the bad guys turned to God and escaped God’s wrath.

That’s bad – but that’s not my point here. My point is what Jonah knows about God.

God is gracious

God is merciful

God is slow to anger

God is of great kindness

God will relent of His wrath if people turn to him

It’s a shame that that made Jonah mad.

But we ought to take great comfort in this. The Ninevites were the least likely, in our eyes to see revival, but even to people ‘like that’ God is gracious and merciful and patient and kind and He will deliver anyone who turns to Him.

Oh, by the way, does it help make this story any more real when we realise that Ninevah was where the modern city of Mosul, Iraq is? Who would dream of Mosul turning to our God today? God hasn’t changed. He could do it today. And if He could do it in Mosul couldn’t He do it in the hearts of our friends and families and co-workers and neighbours?