Jonah – Emmanuel Pentecostal Church Gateshead Resources

SATURDAY 16^th

Jonah 4 – or read all of Jonah it will not take long.

Jonah 4:1 ‘But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.’

The context of this verse falls into the fact that God had relented of the disaster that he had said he would bring upon the people of Nineveh, and he did not do it (Jonah 3:10) Jonah was angry with God because of the decision God had made! (we read of David getting angry with God as well in 2 Samuel 6:8)

It was not my original intention to share from Jonah again today, but as I was reading what got my attention was that Jonah was angry with God and I felt I should share something along these lines, an even shorter devotion than normal, so here goes!

You will have got used to me using my imagination during the time I’ve been sending these devotions out, here as I picture Jonah getting angry with God, I imagine a tiny squatty little mouse standing on his hind legs waving his front foot fist in anger towards a large roaring majestic lion. Now for some honesty, I wonder if you have ever been like Jonah, and got angry or upset with God? I have (thankfully it’s not lasted for long) and I know of others who have because they have been honest enough to tell me so, yet in a sense we know that to be angry or upset with God is as pointless as a mouse putting its fist up to a lion, the lion is going to win every time, and thankfully even if we do get angry with God, he still wins every time, not because we didn’t have a legitimate enough reason to feel angry or upset, but simply because of who God is – God, and he is a God of love, in fact he is love and love always wins!

There are many reasons why we may begin to feel angry or upset with God, a sickness, the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, you can put your own reason in this space .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. but what I want to say today is this, that God understands! Yes, God understands our hearts, he understands our emotions, he understands our feelings and frustrations, after all he created us, but more importantly God is big enough to take our anger, our outbursts, our frustration and he is able to come alongside us and to help us overcome it, and the wonderful things is that even though we may have felt angry or got upset with God or toward God, as he comes in love he can turn our anger, upset feeling into joyful praise as we realise that what we saw as harm or as a disappointment or a negative in our lives, God can use it for good and for his glory. Now, I know that some would say (for this reason I was almost reluctant to write about this, but have done because I have had to deal with it in pastoral ministry) that we should never get angry or upset with God, and of course it is better to never get angry or upset with God, but sometimes because we are human our emotions can get the better of us, it can happen in the natural realm, we can get angry or upset with someone we love, but because love wins, the anger or upset feeling is soon forgotten.

God is so much bigger than we realise, even the lion in my imagination at the beginning of this devotion is puny in comparison to our Almighty God, he knows our hang ups, he knows our foibles, he knows us inside out, and yet he still cares for us, he still loves us, and even if we get angry or upset with him, he is still willing to come alongside us and to carry us through. Love wins.

Bigger than all my problem, Bigger than all my fears