Learning God’s Heart

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. - Jonah 4:2 (ESV)

Jonah is not happy when he says these words. He is upset about God’s decision to spare Nineveh, so upset that he tells God that if God is not willing to destroy Nineveh then he wants God to destroy him! But he’s still hoping that something will happen that will cause Nineveh to be destroyed after all and so he camps out to the east of the city to see what will happen when the forty days that he had announced were completed. While he is sitting there praying for Nineveh’s destruction, God tries to help him understand why God had spared the city.

V6 says that God appointed a plant to grow near where Jonah was sitting so that he would have some shade in the sun. But just when Jonah was beginning to enjoy the shade, God appoints a worm to destroy the plant. Jonah is angry with God again and again asks for death. God then questions Jonah’s anger.

Jonah had not contributed in any way to the growth of the plant that had given him shade. It was God’s idea and God’s creation just as all the people and animals in Nineveh were. So why was Jonah so upset about the destruction of this one thing when he was demanding the destruction of the others? Was the plant worthy of being spared just because it was useful to Jonah? Were the others worthy of destruction just because Jonah had no use for them?

We may not be actively seeking harm to others like Jonah was, but like him, we can sometimes be so caught up with our own comfort and convenience that we don’t stop to think about the impact we may be having on others or on the world around us. It took a water shortage in my city for me to realize how much water I unthinkingly waste every day. It took a protest breaking out in an iPhone factory in China for us to think about working conditions in factories far away.

This passage reminds us that everything that exists was created by God and as their creator, He cares about their wellbeing. We aren’t to be so self-centered that we care only about our own well-being and ignore the fate of people or other created things just because that doesn’t impact us directly. But the passage also reminds us that God is patient with us when we don’t get things right because of our self-centeredness. He doesn’t give up trying to help us understand his heart.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Philippians 2:4 (ESV)