Pastor Ken's Weekly Devotional

March 11, 2007 ~ Jonah 4: 1-11

"I am angry enough to die!"

So said Jonah a second time as the Lord tried to prompt him to see the fault of his own self centered reasoning that the Ninevites shouldn't have merited saving.

After all, seemed to think Jonah, these guys were the current oppressors of Israel! Why should the Hebrew God want to do anything but destroy them? I could just die! So Jonah seems to have thought.

Have you ever been mad enough, embarrassed enough, worn out enough, burned out enough to say, at least to yourself, "I could just DIE!" ? I have.

I've railed at a competitor who I thought was using unfair business practices to take away my customers. I've felt unnecessarily hurt by the comments of persons at times. I've asked God for direction in some issue or another and found I didn't like His answer very much. Yes, I've pouted and sulked in my time and I suppose there's a chance I'll do it again. But God doesn't like sulkers.

"What right have you to be angry!" God answers back at Jonah's whine, "Shouldn't I care about a city as big and full of people and animals as Ninevah?" After all, God cared about little old Gath Hepher, the village Jonah preached in when he wasn't called by God to preach to the largest city on the planet!

We don't know if Jonah ever got it. The book ends with God's final pleas and no response from the angry prophet.

What we do know is that we hear no more of Jonah till Jesus speaks his name on the record in Matthew and Luke when our Lord spoke of the "sign of Jonah," his three days in the big fish's body, as a comparison of his own pending three days in the tomb.

The sign of Jonah is not a metaphorical gimmick. It is a Biblical truth that when we are at our worst, overwhelmed with life, angry at all, possibly including ourselves and God Himself, at our very wit's end, that's when God will do His stuff, IF we call upon Him as Jonah did. If we pray.

Sadly, Jonah kept praying after he was saved from the fish, (he and God spoke throughout the rest of the story), but Jonah wasn't listening. He was either talking, or sulking. How amazing that when we sulk our ears often go shut!

My prayer for you, and I ask you to say the same prayer for me, is that we both can listen instead of just speak ourselves to God. Really listen to Him. For what He has to say will not only bless us, but will remove the burnout, pressure, fear that sometimes overwhelms us.

Be blessed this week, and let's be in prayer for each other, shall we?

Pastor Ken

Pastor Ken sends a Weekly Newsletter that includes his devotional message for the week and an update of the current happenings at Hope Church. If you would like to receive his newsletter, just click below and he'll add your email address to his list of subscribers.