“…till he should see what would become of the city.” Jonah 4.5 ESV
Jonah was certainly not like God in regard to having all knowledge, but he also was certainly not like God in knowing good from evil, either. The serpent’s lie is still cunning and subtle even today. Jonah’s sense of morality was warped because he was the biggest thing in his world, even when he obviously wasn’t. Here’s a guy who had to be whipped by a storm and swallowed by a whale just to be able to sit where he sat in this verse, and he still wouldn’t admit defeat. He still wouldn’t allow God to topple his little kingdom of dust.
The fact that Jonah doesn’t know what will happen to the city demonstrates his impotence to carry out the judgment he so longs to see fulfilled. But the fact that he waits to see what will happen demonstrates something else. He is still suffering a radical disconnect from the heart of God. His desires are out of order.
In cases of extreme bitterness like this one, because of my own experience, the only tonic I can recommend is gratitude. I know people even now who are so wrapped up in what hasn’t happened that they have lost touch with gratitude. They, like Jonah, are so obsessed over their disappointment about their expectation having not come to pass that they can no longer live in or enjoy the moment, and perhaps the worst part is that they confuse continuing to hope in their desolate version of their perfect world with faith in God. But this belief has no life in it. It’s full of death because there’s no room for anything else in it. It’s dead because it refuses to release its iron grip from the thing it thinks it wants. Refusal is a very dangerous position to take up. I know exactly what I’m talking about because I know what it's like to have lived this way.
The way out is to find one thing to be genuinely grateful for, then confess it aloud, forcing the lips of your flesh to give praise to God, however reluctant. Speak it out, then challenge yourself to find a second thing to be grateful for because, if you can find one, you can find two. Once you find two, I’m sure you can find three, and hopefully, if your heart is half as stubborn and stupid as mine has at times been, you will discover more reasons to be thankful for what you have been given.
And you’ll find your iron grip beginning to relax. Gratitude can release you from the prison of your own plans, even when those plans masquerade as the plans God has for you. The reason gratitude is so powerful is because it glorifies God, not us.
And you may even find yourself confessing an even more radical truth: that “God is God, and I am not.” Confessions like these have a way of doing deep work in the soul. Though they sound simple, they are effective precisely because of their simplicity.
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