Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.
I love the story of Jonah. I am so Jonah.
I was raised in the church with a clear sense of being beloved and special, called to be in fellowship with God. I believe that God wants, more than anything, for everyoneto experience the perfect peace and life abundant in love that God promises and delivers.
That everyone word sounds so cool. Like a children’s song. Jesus loves the little children/all the children of the world.
Here’s where I become Jonah: when someone hurts my kids.
Is the person who harmed my child really worthy of compassion, kindness, and forgiveness?
I can’t believe God would want me to forgive and be kind to someone who has been an instrument of evil.
Instead, I am like Jonah, pouting under the gourd vine saying, I knew you were going to love and forgive them anyway. It’s not fair.
Here are Jonah’s words: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:1).
And Jonah is real angry about it. Angry that God forgives and even loves with all Gods heart the people who have allowed evil to control their actions.
I get it. I get Jonah pouting outside the city of Ninevah when all those people in the city are begging for God’s forgiveness and God is actually rejoicing.
Seriously, God? Jonah asks. You are happy for the people who took away our homes and made us exiles? You are happy for the people who killed my father, my mother, my brothers? Seriously? You want me to go to them and remind them of your love so that they can be forgiven? I don’t THINK so!
It’s a tough lesson for old Jonah, but a quintessential lesson of love for me. I have to be ok with God doing what God does. Forgiving. Loving. Even those who have done the most reprehensible evil against my family, against me.