I have been regularly walking my country county road for a few months now. God has met me many times on that patched-up asphalt. He has met me when I cry and cannot find reason. He has met me with song in my heart to the point I gotta run like a child. He has taught me in my steps when my heart and mind were ready to act like a student of His word and follower of His Christ.

Today I walked. He taught. I listened.

On my way back, some of the giant trees were offering shade. The sun was glowing behind them. (I was able to catch a moment of it in featured picutre.) And for some reason I thought of Jonah. His story is actually more complex than I noticed before. More relatable. More needy for grace. Hungrier for rest. A desire to be more settled on the character of God than my own plight.

It wasn’t just that Jonah was a prophet of Israel and acted in disobedience towards God. The story is more than being swallowed up by a giant fish – a fish God prepared for that task – only to be spat out after his cry for God’s salvation. And even after delivering the message of repentance, judgement, and salvation – the story is not over. When the giant metropolis, Nineveh, heard Jonah’s message, they fasted. They responded in humility and turned from their evil ways to a God who would turn away His judgement and offer an opportunity to know Him instead.

Back to Jonah. Back to my walk.

Jonah had been a worker for God. A prophet or a man of God is work indeed. Possibly in his work, bitterness had festered, and his love was growing cold. We don’t know why but we do know he was displeased and angry. Because at the end of this winding story, after sitting outside the city expecting to “see what would become of that city”, Jonah’s heart still wrestled. It was still about him.

“And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.” Ch.4:6-7

After this a great east wind came, the sun beat down and Jonah again wished he were dead.

Ya know, you should read this whole story. Let the Lord teach you and bless you with seeing Him, on scene, with Jonah. Patient. Holy. Resolute. Gracious. It captures us because some parts of life are unexplained, unsettled, maybe unfinished. God knows this. God still asks you to give. To bleed. Sweat. Wait. And hope in His goodness. He will give you shade then tell you move along after a bit. He will test you. He will cover you. He will send a great fish and He will send His only Son. You may not understand. You will grow tired. And you might even run the opposite direction for a time. But He remains.

He remains when there is judgment, service, joy or deserted hopes. He is what will always remain. He is the portion. He is the maker of the heat and the shade.

Jonah laid a charge at God’s feet when he said it would be better to die than be alive. That heat was the straw that broke that camel’s back. Jonah was at the end of himself. (Go read God’s response for even greater depth than my words could offer.)

God desired that Jonah find HIM when he was at the end of himself.

God had the mercy and strength Jonah was out of. God had the balm for the anger. God encompassed the wisdom he needed.

Jonah must have forgot these things.

This is where a lesson found me on my walk: That some of my trials will be without a full understanding. Some of my service will spend me completely, but God is the source of my life. My failings will be tended to. And God will ask me to move on from a rest when I would rather stay. God will be the one who sends the fish, wants the work done in unlovely places, and sends an easterly wind that I didn’t want. Did I thank God that He delivered me from the fish after all? Did I humbly bow at the chance to work my own hands in the soil of His gospel and grace? Did I love the shade or the shade-giver? Was this all about Him or me?

God is gracious. Yet sometimes His children are bent on finding the troubles of life. We, His children, forget the greater picture and deeper workings that fashion our hearts for eternity for all. The last verse in the book of Jonah reveals God’s graciousness and pity upon the lost and was a rebuttal to Jonah’s charge. May we learn from our brother, Jonah. May we sympathize with his struggle and glean wisdom from God’s interaction with him.

Rain or shine, heat or shade.