Jonah's Plant and my battle with comfort

Last night I went to a great college worship service at the University of Oregon.  Campus is beautiful by the way.  The guy speaking was teaching through the book of Jonah and last night covered teh last chapter.  I have always loved this story in the Bible, but for the most part have focused on the whole fish episode.  Last night it was all about Jonah's plant.  Jonah is pouting at the edge of the city and God causes a plant to grow up that provides shade and protection for Jonah.  While Jonah is sleeping God does away with the plant.  At this Jonah is irrate and for the thrid time in the chaper ask God just to kill him.  He can't believe God would take away the one thing that was comforting him.  It was his shade and protection and God had to go and ruin it.  It was a total crime against humanity.

But then God questions.  See Jonah had just got finished being mad because God showed mercy to a city of people who Jonah did not like and did not care about.  And here is where it hit me...Jonah cared more about his comfort than the perishing people in the city.  The encouraging part of this is that God shows Jonah his mistake.  I am beginning to see mine.  Our comfort may not be plants.  They may be monetary accounts or relationships or locations or jobs or ministries or ideas or plans or degrees or hobbies or feelings.  Do we care more about these than the people who are dying without knowing God.  I see myself in Jonah and I am so embarrassed that the plant of my head gets so much of my time and interest.  As I am here in Eugene it is very evident that there is a city here who does not know God.  I want to love them more than the comforts of my life.  I pray God would show me object lessons to teach me to have the same compassion and love that he has for his people.

Comments

  1. eric jeffersonDecember 1, 2011 at 7:30 PM

    Thank you. We rest in our comfort and praise God for it while His heart breaks every second of every day.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giving sight to the blind

Image
Luke 4:18-19 has many times been referred to as Jesus' manifesto.  In it he says that he has came to Proclaim good news to the poor (check) Proclaim liberty to the captives (people come to the  Mission on parole...so...check) Set at liberty those who are oppressed (recovery, check) Recovering of sight to the blind (che...wait a minute, hmm, not so sure I can check that one) Now by no means am I claiming to be doing these all like Jesus does everyday.  In fact, I struggle often to keep the main thing the main thing.  But the recovering the sight to the blind has always felt like that was one kept exclusively for Jesus.  Until today.  Enter my friend Richard. Richard is someone I've grown really close to.  He is struggling with issues in life, but has tons of potential.  He has shown himself a natural leader here at the Eugene Mission and is spending time at recovery meetings and in Bible studies everyday.  He moved off the streets and into the Missio
Read more

Why we put December in a low income school.

Image
I want to start by saying, in no way is what we have chosen the best or only way out there.   We just feel it's our way this season. But here is why we chose this path:  When we moved to Oregon we knew our oldest would be going into school.  The great thing is that there are many options for school here.  Private Christian Schools, homeschooling, and the county even let's you enter lotteries for any of the many public elementary schools around.  So when the day came, Audrey and I had much to talk about. We really felt that God had led our family to try our best to make big decisions as missionaries walking in faith.  This led us to believe that the school that was literally just around the corner from our house was a prime mission field.  The coolest part is that Decmeber got to be the lead missionary here.  She would dictate relationships and she would be at the center of decisions of our family involvement.  This has been so beautiful to watch. It was amazing to see my
Read more

17 Challenge Update

So here is where we are at.  In less than 24 hours around 70 people joined in together and raised over $1700 to help bring sight to the blind.  The blind in this case is my friend at the Eugene Mission, Richard.  This afternoon I broke the news to him about how many of you had joined in to help him see again.  He broke down crying in disbelief.  Then we prayed and gave God glory for providing when it was thought impossible. A couple of months ago Richard had began seeing doctors to see what had happened with his eyes.  He found out that he had cataracts growing over his eyes, but it was fixable.  The problem is that any charity funded agencies were only going to help with medical, not optical issues.  The surgical assistant told Richard he would need $1700 to get the procedure.  We talked to the lions club, but depleted funds left them with no way to help.  We gave up.  Then the scripture convicted me and led to the 17 challenge that happened yesterday.  God did amazing things.   Che
Read more