Jonah-God is Concerned About Everyone

By Mary Vee
Jonah 4

From Jonah's Crinkled Journals

Photo Courtesy

Even with the shelter I had built, the sun still warmed the place to a blazing temperature where I sat. 

I had spent the day watching the city. Waiting for God to destroy it. I slept that night and woke the next morning to find a vine sprouting from the dry ground near my shelter. It had grown up and wrapped itself around the sticks I'd used during the night. Truly God had done this because even a vine wouldn't grow that fast. 

I knew it. God did care about me. Maybe He would destroy the city of Nineveh after all. 

The shade cooled my skin. I felt so much better. I kept watch on the city all day, never leaving my post. Maybe God would send down bolts of lightening from heaven, or maybe the walls would fall like Jericho's did, or maybe He would send plagues like He did for Egypt. 

I sat back, enjoying the cool shade and waited. All day I waited. That night I fell into a sleep that refreshed me. Maybe the new day would bring the end of Nineveh. I laughed to myself.

The next morning I woke and found a worm had chewed the vine, the one that grew up and covered my shelter, yesterday. My vine had withered. The one God gave me for shade. 

A scorching wind blew from the east. My shelter didn't protect me from the sweltering heat. The sun grew so hot on my head I could barely sit. I couldn't take the blazing sun any longer.

I cried out to God in my misery. "It would be better for me to die than to live." 

God spoke to me. "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

"I do and I am angry enough to die." First the Ninevites repented, then God spared them, and now the very vine providing me shade has withered.

God said, "Jonah, you have been concerned about this vine, though you did not plant it, take care of it, or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. but Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left. They also have many cattle. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

So, God had made up His mind. 

He chose to spare Nineveh. I may as well go home.

***********************************************************

1. What gift did God give Jonah as he sat in his shelter?
2. What happened to the vine?
3. Why was Jonah angry?
4. God said Jonah had been concerned about the vine when he should have been concerned about _____________. 
5. How many people lived in Nineveh?
6. Did the people of Nineveh say they were sorry for bad things they had done?
7. Why didn't Jonah want Nineveh to be saved?
8. What does John 3:16 say?

This seemed to be perfect timing on God's part 

to have this story fall right at Easter time, don't you think?