The
God of Second Chances
By
Thomas R. Fletcher
Read Jonah
Chapters 3 & 4
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,
“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I
tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the
Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.
Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out,
“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of
Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put
on sackcloth.
When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his
robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a
proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No
human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not
feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with
sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil
ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and
change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
When God saw their actions, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed
his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them.
God relented. God gave them
another chance.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the
Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own
country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you
are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from
me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it
right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east
of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade,
waiting to see what would become of the city.
The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade
over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about
the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked
the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east
wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked
that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And
he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are
concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not
grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be
concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred
and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left,
and also many animals?”
Jonah knew some truths about God—truths he had apparently wanted to keep to
himself. Jonah had just experienced God’s loving-kindness. After God first
called Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah ran away, putting his prejudice above
God’s directive.
I can’t fault Jonah too much for resisting what God wanted. How often have I
tried to hide from God, going my own way? How often have I avoided what I
clearly sensed God would have me do? How often have I, like Jonah, wanted to see
God punish others for their sins?
Even though Jonah disobeyed and ran from God, he was given a second chance. With
grace and mercy, God was still willing to use Jonah in spite of his past
failure. Jonah knew the Lord’s compassion, and so do we. How can we not want
to see that mercy extended to others? God has given us another chance more times
than we can count. We become more
like God when we extend a second chance to others.
God of second chances, forgive us for not extending mercy to others. Show us
someone with whom to share your loving-kindness today.
Pray for someone who needs a second chance; help me be willing to offer others a
second chance.
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