Summertime often shows us new things in our heart. Our desires, expectations, and aspirations come into view. Recent reports show that thousands can be spent in the pursuit of a good summer. As a mum of primary aged children, I can easily see how. There is so much pressure to keep them busy and stimulated in July and August. From ice creams to activity camps, it all mounts up. In the world today, entertainment is seen almost as a basic human right. Outings, adventures, and new experiences are “essential” to a happy summer. It’s not just children. The lure of a good summer holiday to cure all stresses and struggles lies just on the other side of cheap flight.
Does it have to be that way? What are your holiday essentials? What have you felt entitled to this summer? What are we entitled to demand from God’s hand when we feel we need a break?
A prophet of God with an entitled attitude
The book of Jonah is about a prophet of God with an entitled attitude. It follows Jonah as he runs from God’s call on his ministry in Nineveh looking for an easier version of life in Tarshish. It tracks Jonah’s escape from death on a stormy sea and his experience of salvation in the belly of the fish for three days and nights. It observes Jonah’s reluctant and eventual resignation of his fate to proclaim God’s judgement on Nineveh, to his inexplicable anger when the people repent and turn to God. It records Jonah’s petulant rant at the Lord who, instead of wiping out the people, shows grace and compassion towards an undeserving nation. Finally, the book observes Jonah sat outside the city, furious with God for giving and then taking away the vine that sheltered his head. Jonah “was greatly displeased and became angry” with God (4:1). And into this God speaks: “Do you have any right to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4, 8).
What can the story of the entitled Jonah teach us – perhaps when the plans we make come undone and the rest we anticipated is snatched away? How might we react when God’s call on our lives is not what we schemed and not what we wanted? When it is not what the culture around tells us we should expect?
Jonah teaches us that the troubles we face come from God
At the point Jonah is engulfed at the bottom of the ocean inside a giant fish he is, as we might sometimes say, completely overwhelmed – physically, mentally, spiritually. Yet he recognises one essential thing in the midst of it. That the troubles he faces come from God: “All your waves and breakers swept over me” (2:4). Somehow his displacement from his own plans gives him the perspective to see how God is present and active in the middle of his calamity. It’s not random. There is purpose, even in his pain. God is with Jonah in the “heart of the sea” and even “in the realm of the dead” (2:2).
Jonah teaches us that the way of faith is the way of praise
It’s there, at the bottom of the ocean, inside the guts of a fish, that Jonah starts to shout out in prayer. Yet, not in grief – in gratitude! Nothing has really changed in his circumstances. He’s got seaweed wrapped around his head (2:5) and he’s miles from safety. Nevertheless, he is able to say:
“But I with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord’” (2:9).
How is he able to say that? What in his experience causes him to praise rather than become embittered? I think it is because despite his best efforts to escape, Jonah has experienced God pursuing him. There is a comfort in knowing that we can’t hide from God, even when we try. The words of the hymn by Samuel Rodigast (1675) written to comfort his friend in his illness reflect this:
Whate’er my God ordains is right,
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall;
And so to Him I leave it all,
And so to Him I leave it all.
In the worst of places Jonah experiences the fatherly care of God around him. In the bleak place of darkness in the belly of the fish Jonah knows God’s mercy. This place of suffering is God’s protection from the folly of a life running from God.
Harvard Medical School recently published some research tracking the impact of gratitude on people’s lives. In the study, people were put into three groups. One group had to write a sentence a week about what they were grateful for. Another group had to write a sentence about their irritations. And a third group just had to write a sentence about their week (with no emphasis given on whether they should be negative or positive). After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. They also exercised more and had fewer visits to the doctors than those who focused on sources of aggravation.1
This evidence taps into the reality of life in God’s world. It shouldn’t be surprising. Because it reinforces what we are made for – praise and thanksgiving towards God. The way of faith is the way of praise. Even when our plans go awry, faith calls us to be “sorrowful and yet rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
Re-titled
Though we are not entitled to demand anything from the good hand of God, and we’d do well not to expect a summer full of expensive activities, we have been unmistakably blessed by him. If gratitude in a general sense can lead to wellbeing, how much more will gratitude to God for what he’s done for us in Christ lead to joy in our calling and flourishing in our lives? We are those who have been given many new titles in God’s kingdom. We are saints (Romans 5:1). We are children (1 John 3:2). We are priests (1 Peter 2:9). We are the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:23). We are heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:26) – outsiders deserving of judgement but now brought into his kingdom like the people of Nineveh. As this summer draws to a close, might we grow in trust that God is with us in our troubles and seek to cultivate praise in our lives of faith.
