We visited another Salvation Army church this morning. It was a really lovely service and was great to meet so many friends there. As a church they have been working throught the book of Jonah, and today was the final one in the series for them on this subject.
We looked at the bit right at the end of the book – Jonah had finally made it to Ninevah, delivered the message God had given him, and the people had turned from their sin and repented. God decides not to smite the city after all and it looks like everything will be happy ever after.
But Jonah is unhappy about this. He complains bitterly to God, and decides he wants to die. God responds with little sympathy, his compassion is for the 120,000 people in Ninevah, and he draws Jonah’s attention to this fact. As readers we are surprised by the twist in the tale, like a Hollywood movie where we thought we’d predicted the ending, only to be shocked at the last minute.
The more I thought about it, the more I saw this as applicable to my life at the moment. Do you know what I mean about those times when, just as you thought you had it all worked out, when you seemed to have grasped where the story was going, when things were just making sense; the tables turn irrevocably?
Often these twists in the tale are uncomfortable. I know the one I am in at the moment is. It was more fun when things were clearer and more predictable.
As I have thought about this, it made me think of how often this is the case: the times we have prayed long and hard for someone to be healed and then they are not, the times we have prayed that a situation will improve and instead it escalates, those moments when we beg God to move and it seems the opposite to what we have asked happens. We can be left standing on a new page of our story, reeling from how things have changed, uncertain of where God is and where he is leading us.
It reminds me that what looks like the end of the story to our human minds is often just the start of a new phase of it. When Jesus was crucified on the cross it looked like the whole thing was over, failed, quashed. When Job lost his family and livestock, it looked as if everything of value had been taken from him. When Joseph’s brother stripped him of his robe and sold him to passing Midianite traders, it looked like the end of his life and of God’s plans for him. God sees the bigger picture and what we see as disaster and ending can often be an opportunity for something fresh and new and vibrant. These biblical twists in the tale were painful at the time and yet God was in control in each situation.
For me, today, these twists are an opportunity to go deeper in relationship with God, to be able to get to know him better, and to understand to a greater extent what it means to be adopted into his family. I can’t rationalise or understand the things that are happening, but I trust in who God says he is. I trust that he is faithful, I trust that he is present, I trust that he has my best interests at heart, and I trust that he hears me when I cry out to him.
I have to choose to remember these things, especially when the circumstances of life would scream the opposite. It’s back to those verses in Lamentations 3- I’m keeping a grip on hope, because God’s love couldn’t have run out or changed, he is faithful, he is merciful, he is all the certainty I have.
I wonder if Jonah looked back on his life and found that the twist in his tale – the redemption of Ninevah and his reaction to it, was an opportunity for growth, for new depth in his relationship with God. Or did the uncertainty and unpredictability prove too much?
When I look back at the unexpected twists in my own life, I want to be able to recognise that these caused me to throw myself more onto God’s love and to rely more completely on his Salvation. Romans 8:28 promises that God uses everything for good for those who love him. That is sometimes difficult to grasp, but he has proved it in the past and I remain sure that this time will be no different.
