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Programming Note
Over the weekend, I’ll be changing my distribution CMS from beehiiv to SubStack. This means you’ll be receiving God @ Work emails from a new email address. You may also receive a subscription notification from SubStack when I upload email addresses there.
Why am I making the change?
Contextually, I have found my God @ Work writing veering a little from work into Theology. SubStack gives me the opportunity to have a variety of publications. Therefore, I’m rebranding to Digital Disciple, of which God @ Work will be one newsletter, Between Sunday and Seminary will be my longer form theology reviews, and a new newsletter Artificial Theology will explore what it means to live faithfully in a changing technological world. You can sign up for all three of them at www.readdigitaldisciple.com
Technologically, I’ve grown particularly impressed with SubStack’s focus on community. I like their reader app, which also has community chat features and a Twitter substitute called “Notes.” While I’m not thrilled about Notes, I am excited for where SS is going as a platform. So I’m making the jump now, while we’re still early.
Thanks for bearing with me while I’m figuring all this stuff out. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.
But the Lord said, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?”
An unanswerable question
The Socratic method is a teaching style stimulated by questions from the educator to inspire the educated to arrive at their own conclusions. The questions are often tailored to suggest and nudge the student to the conclusion the educator wants the student to arrive at.
Perhaps we should retitle it to “God’s method.” He deploys it many times across the Old Testament, as does Jesus in the New Testament.
Does Jonah have good reason?
Jonah wanted God’s wrath poured out on the Assyrians. Whether they deserved it or this was a cultural accusation wouldn’t matter. God pierces to the heart of the matter as Jonah sulks.
“Do you have a good reason to be angry?”
It reminds me of God’s response to Job after his lamentations and frustrations.
Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind and said, “Who is this who darkens the divine plan By words without knowledge?”
Job was a righteous man being severely punished, and he received a much sterner rebuke than the disobedient Jonah. Shouldn’t God show more compassion upon the suffering than the whining? We must notice the context of each situation.
Job is lamenting in his own righteousness. He is frustrated because he (accurately) recounts how just and worthy his actions have been:
“If my land cries out against me, And its furrows weep together; If I have eaten its fruit without money, Or have caused its owners to lose their lives, May the thorn-bush grow instead of wheat, And stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
Whereas Jonah is exalting God’s grace.
…since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster.
Sure, Jonah is whining in his own self-righteous concern about the public’s perception of his public prophecies of destruction, but he does so while acknowledging God’s fairness to all, and Job decried God as unfair.
Jonah ain’t much better, though
The book of Jonah ends with God granting Jonah shade in his despair by growing a plant, only to let the plant die to Jonah’s agony. There are a few quick things to consider here.
We aren’t entitled to blessings
Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” “Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”
How dramatic of Jonah?! God is pressing Jonah to realize his form of justice and his entitlement means nothing. If Jonah did not cause the plant to grow, what has he done to invest in the shade. We cannot bemoan God’s revocation of blessings we did not earn in the first place.
Everyone is important to God
But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”
God looks at the great multitude of the lost and mourns for them. He does not rejoice in His wrath. He does not rejoice in their pain. We should all carry that compassion for our culture today.
Miracles can be subtle
And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than living like this!” he exclaimed.
There’s that eastern wind! I have a personal fascination with “the eastern wind.” It brings the plague of locusts onto the Egyptians. It parts the Jordan River in the conquest of the Promised Land. It brings drought and famine in justice in Hosea. Those are just a few of the many references. Perhaps, God works in subtle ways to that those with eyes will see, yet others will not perceive.
Let’s be honest
We’ve all been there. We are the center of our own universes. Whether small or large, we lament to God for our misfortunes. I regularly get upset about my perpetual bad luck with red traffic lights.
Especially when we consider our enemies or our competitors. It is easy to covet their success, to wish their demise, to demand divine justices and bring the sulfur and ash of Soddom and Gomorrah down on their undignified heads!!!
But our rage does not hurt those who hurt us; our rage only hurts ourselves. The ESV translation says,
And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
No, we do not do well to be angry. Instead, our anger cracks the door for sin to take root in our hearts. The hardship we wish on others, only makes it easier for us to fall into our own snares.
A person’s discretion makes him slow to anger, And it is his glory to overlook an offense.
It is to your glory to overlook an offense. How many offenses should we overlook?
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times.”
Let go of your anger. Today.
Let go of the resentment. Now.
Make the choice to live in the expectation of the unbounded blessings of God, not trapped in the mire of your indignation.
We all have it. I can think of a few names as I write this. Whoever it is and whatever they’ve done, let it go. Make that choice.
We have no good reason
Jesus paid it all for us. As often as others have transgressed against us, it does not compare to how often we have transgressed against God’s holiness. Jesus forgave while on the cross, surely we can forgive in the middle of our blessings.
Prayer
“Father, remind me of my place before you. Turn my attention towards my blessings and away from my hurts. Abba, I need the joy and peace Your Spirit brings. Help me to choose Your blessed assurance over my righteous wrath. All to Your glory, Amen.”
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