Our Heart and Journey with God

"It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.  And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”  And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry." 

(Jonah 4:1-4)

All of us our on a journey in this world called life.  And this journey, which for most of us will last between 70-80 years is filled with many twists and turns and ups and downs.   The outcome of our life will very much depend on what we think our purpose is and how we dedicate our time and energy towards that purpose.

One of the great overarching themes of the Bible’s 66 books is that all of us were created for a God given purpose.  And that purpose is only discovered when we come into a relationship with Him.  God through the agency of His Holy Spirit will reveal to us our purpose, guide us along the way, transform us to be more and more like Jesus and help us accomplish His will. 

In order for that to happen we have to make it an aim to journey in this life with God.  One expression that Scripture uses repeatedly is our call to “walk with God.”  Moses defines this call in Deuteronomy 6:5-6 this way, “These commands that I give you today shall be on your heart… you shall talk about them one you sit down in your house and walk along the way.”

Another well know Scripture that helps us understand how to “walk with God” in this journey is from Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understanding, acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make your paths straight.”

When God is on the periphery of our lives, when we put Him second and put all the concerns of the world first, our God given purpose will be become cloudy and our direction in life will go off course.  Instead of learning to trust God and acknowledge Him in all our ways, we will begin lean on our own understanding.  Jonah is a great example to us in this regard.

We find Jonah who had a God given purpose as God’s prophet, running away from God.  Even after being swallowed up by a fish and renewing his commitment to follow God and going to Nineveh to preach, we see him here in Jonah 4 again wondering in the attitude of his heart and mind.  Again like so many of us, Jonah lost his way. 

And we learned that one of the reasons Jonah lost his way had to do with his bitterness towards Israel’s enemy, the Assyrian Empire.  We discussed several times in our series how Jonah, was deeply impacted by the Assyrians as God’s prophet and ultimately Jonah wanted God to judge them, not extend to them forgiveness and redemption. 

We learned from both biblical and secular history that Jonah has some good reasons for his anger.  The Assyrian Empire was one of the most brutal ruthless people of all time.  If you remember, one of their inscriptions found on several city gates after they would destroy a city that resisted its will was “we captured, we pillaged and we burned with fire.”  

Many of the cities in Northern Israel resisted the Assyrians and payed the ultimate price as cities were destroyed, woman were raped, people were enslaved.  One historian records that one of the ways that they enslaved those they conquered was to impale their jaws with a steel spike and drag them back to their territory.  No doubt there were such slaves from the North Israel during the time of Jonah in Nineveh. 

And so Jonah was filled with bitterness and unforgiveness towards these people.  Whatever he saw and heard in Israel at the hands of the Assyrians filled his heart with deep anger.  That is why we see Jonah in Jonah 4:1-5 a man so filled with rage that he literally prayed to God to take his life when he saw the Assyrian king and its people repent and turn to God. 

This week we will look at two basic truths in these verses.  First we will see that all of us are on a journey called life and the attitudes that we journey forward will very much depend on whether we are willing to follow God in every area of life, including forgiving our enemies. 

A second truth we will see is how our journey or walk in this life will determine our purpose with which we live, the desires with which we live it, and the ultimate outcome of our lives.  A God given purpose fulfilled in a God directed way will produce God filled life.  A life directed by self, a life that leans on its own understanding, will produce a self-driven purpose, directed by selfish ambitions and selfish desires.