Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

While you were sleeping

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

From Luke 11
There is something greater than Jonah here.

So Jonah was this really smart guy who was sure God was making a mistake. Jonah wanted those barbarians in Nineveh to be wiped from the earth, and God's job was to do just that. But he was disgusted at God's willingness to warn them before he killed them. Jonah tried to get away, he tried hard to get away, but God apparently wanted angry old Jonah to bring his message.

Jonah boarded a boat bound for Tarshish in Spain, which is exactly opposite the direction of Nineveh in Assyria. He told the ship's crew he was running from God. The ship was hit by a storm and shipwreck, and with great remorse the crew threw Jonah overboard. Then, quite unexpectedly, a huge fish swallowed Jonah and took him straight to the shore near Nineveh. He "vomited him out onto dry land."

Now Jonah was quickly famous among those seashore people who believed in Dagon, a fish god. Perhaps they even carried him to Nineveh, where he had no choice but to proclaim the message of the Lord. And the people listened. The king listened. God changed his mind.

Jonah ... well, he was SO angry. Such a short little Bible book, so full of anger and fear.

Of course Jesus knew that story. He knew the Assyrians listened to God's messenger Jonah. Why didn't his own people listen to him? There is something GREATER than Jonah, right here, right now, in your face. Will you please open your eyes and see?

Jesus often said, "Those who have ears to hear, let him hear." He seemed to know that the people he loved so much, the people chosen by God hundreds of years earlier, were going to kill him. And perhaps he also knew he would not stay dead for long. Nineveh "was an enormously large city; it took three days to walk through it."

After Jesus died, he was gone for three days. I wonder if he stayed in his tomb at all. Perhaps Jesus walked through the enormously large city of mankind past, mankind present, mankind future, calling out to them how much God loved them.

In Nineveh, when the people heard God's words through Jonah, "all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth." Sackcloth is not smooth like silk or satin. It is coarse and rough. Your skin itches wherever it touches. It's made from the same stuff that rope is made of.

Sackcloth allows its wearers to beat themselves up and feel penitential. (There's a reason why that word sounds like penitentiary, another name for prison.) They needed to feel bad about their sins in hopes that God would feel sorry for them and forgive them. But that sounds so endless and defeating. Maybe God doesn't need our self-pity but loves us anyway. He doesn't care how much we stink, or how much we revel in our stinkage. Jesus encourages us to follow his example, to learn to sit still and let God love us. There is an old word, "compunction," which means that beyond constant self-examination, our guilt allows us to open to God. Meg Funk says of this, "There is gratefulness to God for being forgiven, being alive, being in relationship. The sorrow of compunction is a wholesome sorrow, knowing the hard times are over and the past is past. This is a celebration of having come home" (p 108, Thoughts Matter).

David says this vividly in Psalm 32: "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and stopped covering up, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Now you are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance."

That's what Jesus is saying, and that's what he wants us to hear.

In the quiet of the morning all the birds sing their songs. The squirrels do not remember their quarrels from yesterday. Let me forget my grudges toward myself and others today, Father. You are full of love for me. Let me be full of love too, for you, for others, for myself. Let this be another day of homecoming for you and for me.

Devotions Archive

While you were sleeping

Wednesday, February 21, 2018