Trusting God's Grace
Jonah 4:9,
But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" "It is," he said. "And I'm so angry I wish I were dead."
I've always enjoyed trout fishing. I love to sneak through the brush along very small streams in the thickets and fish the small holes and log jams. My best day turned into my worst day of fishing when I continually broke my light line on underwater snags or limbs overhead. I nearly had a limit of fat little brook trout and I was about ready to head home. Before I could catch my last fish to fill the limit I began snagging up.
Not only was I snagging and breaking lines, I stepped on slippery log and fell into the mud that covered me in swamp slop. Soaking wet, dirty, exhausted and angry enough to cry, I went back to the truck, wiped off the best I could and drive home defeated.
Jonah was pretty angry in his situation. I'm not sure I have ever been so angry that I wished I were dead. But Jonah was, why?
Jonah had just seen 120,000+ people turn to God (just what God had sent him to do...) He was mad about that so he went out and sat to watch and see what God would do. It was terribly hot and God made a plant grow overnight for Jonah's comfort, then God took it away. And Jonah was again mad.
We so often say we trust God to take care of us and He does... Then we hit a little bump in the road and we become angry that we are not getting our way. We need to start trusting that our all powerful, loving God, the one that saved Jonah from the ocean's fury, the one that saved 120,000+ Ninevites from death, the one who made a tree grow over Jonah's head for his comfort.... We need to trust him in all the big and little things in life.
Verses 10 & 11 go on to put Jonah in his place...
Jonah 4:10-11
But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left...
2 Corinthians 12:9
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
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