As a large man that tends to sweat rather easily, I have never cared much for hot weather. When the mercury starts pushing 80+ degrees, my level of discomfort also starts to rise dramatically. But, as my wife has reminded me many times, I know that I am not necessarily the only person in the room, so I cannot always set the thermostat where I want it to be. The truth is, sometimes we just have to endure uncomfortable situations in life. In fact, God used discomfort to try to teach a lesson to Jonah.
When God asked Jonah to go and warn the wicked city of Nineveh of coming judgment, he chose to run the other way, not wanting the Ninevites to escape God’s wrath. Fast-forwarding through the whole fish part, Jonah does eventually warn the city, and the people respond with repentance. God then spares the city (for a time), and Jonah is livid with Him. Still hoping to see something bad happen to Nineveh, Jonah sets up a little shelter, and God provides a plant for Jonah to give him shade from the hot sun. But then the Lord sent a worm to eat the plant so that it would wither. Needless to say, Jonah was not happy about this! Let’s look at God’s response to Jonah’s anger in chapter 4, verses 10-11:
Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
The Lord rightly points out Jonah’s lack of compassion for the people of Nineveh. Yes, they were wicked, but they were also human beings. Jonah cared more about a plant that lived for a day than for hundreds of thousands of people. How often do we care more about our comfort than the lost people around us? We may get “heat” from this world, but God is far more concerned about saving souls than about how comfortable we are!
Blessings,
Pastor Zach