Story time…… When I was about 6, my older brother and I were playing at my grandparents’ farm, my cousins could’ve been there, who knows. Anyways, we were playing Survivor. And I got the bright idea to collect these grapes for our “food”. Here’s a few things to note 1) these grapes were not ripe, not even close 2) my grandpa had this grape bush for as long as I could remember but never once did I get to taste a grape from it, did he hoard the grapes for himself? Was he secretly making wine with the grapes? Did birds get the grapes before he could ever get to them? I will never know… all I know is that 3) these grapes were off limits.
So yeah, not the brightest idea I ever had, but alas I plucked these grapes off the bush and added them to our stockpile. Of course my grandpa comes around about that time, looks at the grapes, looks at the bush, looks at me, looks back at the grapes, then me, then the bush, then me, then the grapes…… and well let’s just say I started to think that maybe he’d never had these grapes either and by the look on his face it was one more year he wasn’t going to get to taste them…. because of me……
My grandpa was unique in his discipline at this moment. He decided that my punishment was eating these unripe grapes. I can’t really describe the bitter taste and hard texture…… let’s just say that I have no idea why he cared so much about those grapes.
You might be thinking at this point I am about to go in the direction of talking about self-control, not stealing, or maybe you’re just hung up on whatever happened to that grape bush (spoiler: no clue, they just cut it down one day- probably because the grapes were gross but whose to say)…… but no, I want to talk about the bitterness.
Truth be told, I’ve held a lot of bitterness in my life at times. I try not to stay there, but it is a by-product of being offended.
To illustrate this I am going to use a story from the Bible….. and one you probably aren’t thinking of. I want to talk about Jonah. Yeah, the guy swallowed by the whale, or fish. If you’ve read a kids Bible, this is one of the stories that’s pretty easy to make an illustration about. It’s a guy, who gets swallowed by a large fish that I assume is a whale….. wild story but easy to picture in your mind. If you don’t know the story let me give you some highlights (SC version, aka Sam Cribbet Version)
- God tells Jonah to preach to this evil town.
- Jonah nopes the heck out of town and runs very far in the opposite direction across a sea (just as an FYI if I was running from God I would not be anywhere near water… He literally parts the seas, but to each their own)
- The weather turns terrible and the guys on the boat are like WHAT THE HECK… this isn’t a normal storm so they know someone did something bad.
- Meanwhile Jonah is like, yeah it was me, I’m gonna take a nap.
- The guys were like “Jonah get the heck up!”
- Jonah was like, “yeah this is my fault throw me overboard.”
- The guys were like, hold up, say what? How about we just row back to shore vs. tossing you over.
- God was like, nah you can’t get back to shore.
- So the guys were like, walk the plank Jonah.
- Then the giant fish eats him and he lives inside it for 3 days.
- He prays a great prayer, saying sorry for running.
- The fish throws him up. He does NOT take a shower, at least the Bible doesn’t reference one… gross.
- Then Jonah goes to the evil city and tells them about God.
- EVERYONE in the city believes Jonah and starts to love God so God does not destroy the city.
And this is usually where the kid’s version of the Bible stops. We like to talk about how we need to obey what God has called us to do…… however, the book of Jonah does not stop here….
- Jonah gets angry at God and he’s all like “I KNEW IT! I KNEW that if I told these ungrateful people in this city about God they would change their ways”. Jonah then says (again SC Version) “It isn’t fair! I am going to go pout on this hill over here and I really hope you come through God and punch them in the face”.
- Then God is like “Seriously?” God gives Jonah a shade plant on the hill because I guess it was hot, and Jonah is thankful, then God makes it wither and die.
- Then Jonah is like “Ugh I want that plant back”
- The end.
Confused? Looking for your kid’s Bible right now to see if I am lying? Googling Veggie Tales “Jonah and the Whale”?
Yeah, crazy story right? When I look at this story I think the crazy part is not the dude being swallowed by the whale, or taking a nap in a hurricane… no I think the ending is bizarre…. But I get it. Because I’ve been Jonah a time… or two… or seven.
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” (Jonah 4:9)
I have been really bitter and angry about things in my past. Things that when I look back at it, I have every right to be angry about. I’ve been lied to, stolen from, taken advantage of, physically abused, mentally abused…. Yeah, I have been pretty angry about my life at times. I’ve uttered the phrase “It isn’t fair” about a dozen times…. THIS WEEK.
Here’s what you have to know though. Here’s what the book of Jonah is teaching us…. As I’ve heard from multiple people this week… “you can stay bitter, or you can get better”.
And that’s the bottom line. You are going to have terrible things happen in this life. A death, a sickness, or even intentional evilness brought upon you. We live in a fallen, broken world, full of fallen, broken people.
And you have two options. 1) you can choose to stay there and blame others and hold unforgiveness in your heart or 2) you can choose to surrender it to God, move on, and start the road to healing and recovery.
God gave Jonah so many chances. He gave him the calling and ability to preach to an entire city (which was supposedly pretty large) and they all listened and turned toward God. It should have been such an amazing story. But here’s the thing, the city Jonah was preaching to? Yeah, it was a city that totally destroyed cities near Jonah. The people of that evil city, probably killed and did worse to people Jonah knew. He hated that city, and for good reasons too.
So instead of seeing God’s goodness, which Jonah knew intimately…. In fact Jonah declared “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” So Jonah knew, that God would spare the city… but Jonah wasn’t interested in that. No Jonah, wanted human like judgment to fall on his enemy who had made him suffer so much.
I think Christian’s have the hardest time with this. We want a God who fights our battles, who slays our enemies, who holds those who do wrong accountable- which He is and does… but God? God ultimately wants everyone to love Him. So when it comes down to someone who has truly wronged you… do you want what God wants? Do you want them to know God, and not in some “bless your heart” passive-aggressive way, but in a true transformative way? Or do you want them punished?
Let me tell you what God thinks……
He thinks that He gave Jonah the shade plant…. even though Jonah didn’t tend to it, make it grow, provide the soil or water, Jonah did nothing for this tree…. and so why does Jonah have the right to be mad God took it away and let it wither and die? (Jonah 4:10-11)
Still confused?
Let me tell you what God has given you…
God has given you the tree of life, with perfect shade, and rest. It has perfectly ripe fruit with no bitterness, that is available to ANYONE.
He gave you a perfect lamb, a perfect sacrifice, when all you have done is murder, steal, lie, and offend Him time and time again. So when He extends that same grace, the beautiful grace of Jesus’ blood over your sins, to another person… what right do you have to be mad?
The grapes I ate on that afternoon when I was 6 were so very bitter. I can only imagine (and I am still imagining because like I said I don’t think anyone ever ate any of those grapes) that if I would have let go of the bitterness and waited until the grapes were ripe before I picked them, that I would have had a much better experience (or rather my grandpa would’ve picked a different punishment)…. But I digress…
Friends, all I am saying (to me and you) is let go of your bitterness, embrace that the forgiveness you have received is the same that God offers to all, and go on to have an amazing fruitful life.
