When Adversity Leads to God
By Lynette Kittle
Bible Reading:
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to You, to Your holy temple” – Jonah 2:7
It’s difficult for us to watch people going through hardships, even more difficult to experience them ourselves. Earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, wars, and terror attacks, with the destruction being heartbreaking and challenging for everyone involved to go through.
Still, disasters and tragedies have a way of softening and turning human hearts towards God, something they may have not done under any other circumstance. Because God has good plans for us, sometimes we go through difficult things because they are the pathway that leads to Him, even if they don’t feel or seem like it at the time.
In sad times, we choose to believe God and His word over our circumstances, which says, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Jonah’s Change of Heart
Most of us know the story of Jonah, whom God called to bring a warning and preach a message of repentance to the wicked king and kingdom of Nineveh, but he didn’t want to see them saved, so he ran away. But soon after being thrown overboard and gulped by a big fish, Jonah experienced a change of heart while sitting in the fish’s belly.
Although his heart was set before he found himself captive, God had a way of working through his unusual life-and-death situation to change his mind and will to the point of wanting God’s will over His own when it came to the repentance, rescue, and Salvation of wicked Nineveh.
A King’s Change of Heart
Jonah 3:3-5 describes what happened after God had the fish spit him out.
“Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.”
“When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.”
When Mercy Seems Unfair to Us
It’s easy for many of us to empathize with Jonah, who originally wanted to see Nineveh pay for their wickedness and be wiped off the face of the earth. It’s a human feeling tasted by countless men and women throughout the history of the world, of wanting to see those who seem like pure evil held personally responsible for their horrific acts and receive divine judgment and justice.
But even so, like in the case of Nineveh’s king, God offers mercy if they are willing to repent, revealing that even kings who face hardships have the opportunity to turn away from their own evil ways and towards a holy and righteous God.
What Is Our Heart Telling Us?
Still, it’s hard for us at times, like Jonah, to think that God should even give them an opportunity to repent because we’ve seen the destruction and heartache they are responsible for in this life. It doesn’t seem fair to us that they cause so much suffering and death and yet are able to receive mercy as we want them to pay for their evil doings.
So instead of pointing fingers at Jonah for his initial refusal to bring the warning and message of repentance to Nineveh, we might want to look at ourselves in regard to how we may presently be feeling about some of the leaders in our lifetime who seemed to only bring wickedness into the world and ask ourselves if we really want to see them saved, too.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
Let’s commit to taking time to pray for God to soften hearts and bring repentance to those who are suffering through hardships, including godless leaders who may be responsible for bringing about much of the heartache taking place in the world today.
Further Reading:
Jonah 1-4
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/coffeekai
Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.
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