Battling Bitter-Jonah

Hate.  Anger.  Fury.  Bitter.  Cold-Hearted.  Yep, that pretty much is the description of much of my heart this year.   The actions of some are mind-boggling.  And the actions of those who have been close over the years is infuriating.  Confession time here.

So said person made sure to show her disdain in a fit of anger I went out on a hard walk.  Furious, anger, weight-loss reducing stomp-walk.  In the middle of my rage God spoke.  "Try reconciliation."

I did NOT want to hear those words.  I did NOT want to obey those words.  But I knew I would.

I asked the Lord the timing and it was several weeks away.  I asked the Lord how and he said a three day water fast.  I did those things.

In my spirit there was a fullness to approach someone whom I felt has, is and still is wronging me and my family in a very wrong way.  It felt like they should be coming to me, not vice versa.  But hate was eating my soul.

So I went.  And it was ugly.

Afterwards I felt the joy of obedience as well as the back of hate and anger broken.  Although the anger still is having a hard time fleeing.  I'm trying to continue to "bless my enemies" but it isn't easy.  I want to "bless" them away from me. 

But then in a Scirpture meditation I read about Jonah.  I have spoken often about Jonah that his issue was not fear of the Assyrians but hatred.  I find myself identifying.

The problem with Jonah is that even though he obeyed, he still remained bitter.  And we do not know if this ever changed.  And that's sobering.

Sobering as even though I obeyed and made a reconciliation attempt, it isn't enough.  I still need to purge the anger that stalks my soul.  Or else I will become just like Jonah--initially obedience but long-term bitter.  And I don't want that. 

Find bridges, not walls.  If we're real in life that sometimes is harder than a nice sweet sounding phrase.  But this is the path of the gospel.  It is is privilege to obey the Lord in the hard stuff.  It makes us more like Him.

Why the Imagery? The Prophets

Imagine you're trying to communicate with a group of people.  They're not dumb by any respect, in fact they're highly intelligent but opportunity has left them illiterate.  But the message you want to send need to be memorable as it is an important message.  The best way to do this is to use symbols.

Symbols and pictures communicate a lot and there's often an emotive value attached.   Tell a soldier what it is like when a flag raised on a mountaintop after intense fighting.  It is a symbol of hope and victory.  Show an athlete 5 interconnected circles of different colors and ask what it means to them--The Olympics!   

It is this same reason that the prophets used symbols.  They communicate more without words than they do with words.  Think of what a bald eagle communicates to an American?

Or perhaps this image?

Or this picture:

Those outside of American may or may not understand these symbols.  In fact some might think of them not as symbols but just a pretty bird,  a mean looking bull or just another kissing couple.  But for Americans their significance is much beyond this.  In the same way the prophets often used imagery that was meaningful to those who heard.    Horses were symbols of God's heavenly action.  Horns were a sign of power.  Oil was a sign of anointing and blessing.

So when we approach the prophets and at first we see bazaar images, we must take into account the imagery means.   We've got to cross the cultural gap and discover what these symbols meant 100 years ago.  Try my own prophetic word:

I saw a man with a swirled dash on his shoe.  In his arm he carried a box with flying windows of various colors.  In the other hand was an apple but it had a bite taken out of it.  He had to go fast as he might change his mind.  After awhile he saw a large wooden rectangle on a tall post.  On it was painted a triangle with growing lines.  Next to it was large yellow arches.  Suddenly a yellow light pierced the sky and in it was a black bird.  It was just the help he needed!  The light pointed to a building and man went there.  Inside was a box with a triangle of green arrows.  He sighed for a minute.  He saw a blue box with a "t" inside and another darker blue box with an "f" inside.  They both had a circle around them with a diagonal slash.   So he put them in the large box and went home.

A nice little test to see if you can figure out my "prophetic" word.  Symbols.  They matter.

(Answer to "prophetic word" coming soon.)

The Truth about Jonah

Let's tell it to the kids plainly about Jonah.   It wasn't because he was afraid of what they would do to him.  We need to tell the kids the truth about Jonah's story (tastefully) because they will more than likely face similar circumstances.

Truly, who wouldn't want to hate the Assyrians of which Nineveh was their capital?  They were famous war-mongerers:

 They were notorious for skinning people alive.  Outside of crucifixion, I'm not sure if there was a more terrible torture.

They beheaded some to display on city walls while dismembering others in perverse ways:

Then there was the notorious impaling:

More than anything they boasted about it.  As if unimaginable torture were some sick kind of honor for which they wanted to be remembered.

So yes, when God called Jonah to go preach the gospel to them, you better believe he ran the other way.  When the ocean became rough, his response was "Pick me up and throw me into the sea!" He wanted nothing to do with this mission.  And it wasn't because of fear.

But in the belly of the great fish he had second thoughts.  He made a beautiful plea of repentance to the Lord and was rescued, only to return home.  Because we read that the Lord had to call Jonah "a second time" because he never answered the call the first time.  Funny how we forgot those bargains we make in those life-or-death circumstances.

But the second time Jonah went, begrudgingly.  And yes, he might have been a little afraid but that wasn't the reason he dragged his feet on the entire mission.  He knew that if he went it might mean one thing--God might actually forgive them.  And that's exactly what happened.  Jonah preached.  The Assyrians repented.  God forgave.  Jonah was livid.

"O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.  I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live!"

Jonah was bitter because the Assyrians were forgiven.  Angry because God was good, even to these wretched, cursed, hated Assyrians.  He would rather vomit them out of his mouth than see those hideous Assyrians forgiven of their atrocities.

"I am angry enough to die," Jonah told the Lord.

But the Lord had a message. For the Assyrians but also for Jonah.  And for those later to come.

In life, there might be a time when our spirits are filled with so much bitterness that we don't want to see God's mercy granted to the objects of our hate.  Or perhaps the reverse is true.  Feeling like there have been too many evil things done by us to ever be loved by God.  But the truth of this story needs to be told.  Because we need to know for ourselves, and for those we must forgive, that God's goodness cannot be eclipsed by even the most wretched of evil.

"Should I not be concerned?" says the Lord.