What Jonah Teaches Us About God's Mercy (Even When We Want to Run)

Written by Pastor Rosalind Coben, Online Campus Associate Pastor & Social Media

If you had asked me a year ago if there was anyone I hated, I would've told you, “no,” and meant it. I couldn’t think of anyone I hoped I didn’t bump into at a grocery store or something. That is, until I bumped into them. I was out with my daughter, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a person who instantly triggered me into a fight-or-flight response. Without thinking, I picked up my daughter, then ran and hid. I put my daughter down and felt my heart pounding in my chest and I heard the Lord so clearly say to me, “You hate that person.”  

What?! How can I hate someone? I’m a pastor. I’m a mother who walks my children through forgiveness on the daily. My Instagram bio says, “Love God, love people” and yet here I am, holding hate in my heart for this person, and I didn’t even realize it?! I preach about Jesus loving everyone, and I pray that our city and our world comes to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, while simultaneously and subconsciously saying in my heart, “Except them.” 

God followed it up with this, “You need to forgive them. Because I love them just as much as I love you.” What?! After all they’ve done to me, you love that person the same amount?! Of course, pastor me knew that yes, this is true, God loves us all, but person me, hurt, offended, betrayed me found it awfully hard to believe. I didn’t want to forgive them. I didn’t want to give them a chance I didn’t think they deserved. In fact, I was kind-of mad God even asked me to consider forgiving this person.  

So I told God that since I had JUST finished school, I was looking forward to what I was calling, the “Summer of Fun,” and that I would deal with forgiving this person in the fall, “Forgiveness Fall,” I called it. And then the fall came ... and then it was almost winter, and God gently, but firmly said to me, “Forgiveness Fall is almost over and it’s about to be Winter ... what are you gunna do?” 

I knew it was time to deal with this. I began to pray more honestly than I had in a while, and I had some really transparent conversations with my husband, trusted friends, and coworkers who also double as my pastors. I also sought the help of a therapist. I realized that the hate I had reserved in my heart for this person wasn’t really the full picture ... it was hate, yes, but it was rooted in fear and insecurity. 

It scared me to think that God could love someone like that just as much as he loves me. I wanted my Father God to defend me, to protect me, and to give this person what I felt they deserved ... which, let’s just say, was certainly not love and forgiveness.  Because if God could give them another chance, if God could love them just as much as me, and had the audacity to ask me to forgive this person. Did it mean that He didn’t think what they did was so wrong?  

The story of Jonah is the story of God extending mercy to people who don't deserve it, and discovering that God’s mercy is wider, deeper and can be more transformative than we ever could have imagined. It starts with God asking Jonah to go to Nineveh. But instead, Jonah gets on a boat to Tarshish. God sends a big storm, and Jonah volunteers to jump overboard to appease the storm, where he is swallowed up by a big fish, also sent by God. He stays in the belly of that fish for 3 days and 3 nights, and spends his time thanking God for rescuing him, and giving him another chance. The fish takes him back to land, spits him up, and Jonah finally listens to God and goes to Nineveh to tell them that in 40 days their city will be overthrown. The Ninevites believe God, repent, and God changes his mind and decides to spare their lives. 

The Ninevites were terrible people, who had done terrible things, and who were capable of doing more terrible things. Jonah’s resentment, bitterness, and anger towards the Ninevites actually seems to be pretty valid given the context. Why should they get another chance? Hasn’t God seen what they’ve done? I can’t help but wonder if this might be the reality for some of us today. We know God has asked us to go somewhere or talk to someone, and we would rather go literally anywhere else. For some, Nineveh is a place. For others, it’s a person. Where, or who, is your Nineveh?  

Jonah eventually does what God has asked him to do in the first place. And when he did, we read that “When God saw what [Nineveh] did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it." (Jonah 3:10) Jonah, on the other hand, is almost comically mad about this! Perhaps he felt this way because he felt like he earned his second chances. I wonder if we relate to this feeling. Often we’re quick to assume that God should give us a second chance because we’re in relationship with Him, we do our best to follow His ways, read our Bibles, not cut people off in traffic, not gossip at work, etc.  

But it was this kind of thinking that made Jonah numb to the mercy of God in his life! He began to see himself as more deserving of God’s mercy than other people. Even the fish responded to God more than Jonah did! Jonah had grown so used to the mercy of God that he no longer recognized his own need for it.  The reality is, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). All of us have been recipients of God’s mercy. God has “saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy.” (Titus 3:5)  

God kept giving Jonah opportunities to be transformed by his mercy. But because he had grown hard-hearted, bitter and resentful, and became so used to the character of God, he remained untransformed by the mercy of God. Jonah was not transformed by the mercy of God because he didn’t recognize his need for it in the first place. We can know all about God, spend time with people at church, experience God’s mercy first-hand, read our bibles, and still be completely un-transformed by the mercy of God.  

As I mentioned, I avoided forgiveness for a few more months. I’m not saying that was the right choice. It’s just the choice I made. The months following in prayer, conversation with trusted family and friends, and therapy were my “big fish experience.” It stunk. It was uncomfortable. And it was the place God allowed me to see the way the bitterness, resentment, anger, hate, and fear had begun to change me in ways I hadn’t even noticed.  As I came face-to-face with the ugliness that had taken root in my soul, I began to recognize my own need for a second chance.  

And the more I recognized my own need for mercy, I began to understand why God would have compassion for the person who was my Nineveh ... we weren’t that different. I began to see this person as a person, created and loved by God. For me, going to my Nineveh meant being able to offer forgiveness, which took time. But I also know, more than a year later, that if I bumped into this person again, I wouldn’t run and hide. I think I would stay. I think I’d smile, and maybe even have a conversation. That may not seem like much ... but a year ago, I was running in the other direction, so we’ll call it progress! Ha!

Never is the mercy of God made more clear to us than in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus actually talks about Jonah in Luke 11 when he says, “For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.”  (Luke 11:30). The mercy of God is that because of Jesus, we don’t get what we deserve! My friends, we are Nineveh, and Jesus has come willingly to give us another chance. 

• Jonah ran away from Nineveh because he hated them and wanted them to get what they deserved.  

• Jesus willingly left his throne in heaven to save the people he loves from getting what we deserve.  

• Jonah slept on the boat in the middle of the storm, avoiding the consequences of his actions.  

• Jesus slept on the boat in the middle of a storm, and with just a word, stilled the seas. 

• Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a fish before God told the fish to spit him out on to dry land and go to Nineveh.  

• Jesus spent three days and three nights in the grave, fully dead, and then through His resurrection power, rose from the grave!  

  
  

God loved Nineveh. He loves your Nineveh. God sees underneath their behaviours, and sees them as they were always meant to be ... made in his image ... and he also sees that they've lost their way and are in need of another chance. Maybe, if you’re honest, you’ve lost your way too. Would you like another chance? God’s mercy is an invitation for transformation. 

This blog was adapted from Pastor Rosalind’s message, Jonah: The Wideness of God’s Mercy, part of The Twelve: B-Sides series. Still sitting with the question, “Who is my Nineveh?” we invite you to hear the full sermon on Youtube!