This post is Day 23 in a series of studies about “Jonah”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

Feel free to comment below with your own thoughts about each verse and how you will be acting on each thought. Also, if you haven’t yet signed up to receive the notifications of new studies, you can do that today. (The form is at the bottom of the page).

Jonah – Day 23

How sad that Jonah did not feel able to rejoice at the fact that thousands of people had turned to the Lord who loved them and forgave all who turn to Him. What a great testimony it could have been! But Jonah focused not on the Lord but on himself.

Jonah 4:3

Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.

The Thought

Jonah was in a very real sulk, and behaving like a spoilt child! Things hadn’t gone the way he wanted. So he thought it would be better to be dead! How extreme is that? He felt a complete failure because what he prophesied didn’t happen, at least that was his limited view of things. He was thinking that his reputation as a prophet was ruined forever!

How sad it is that Jonah did not feel able to rejoice at the fact that thousands of people had turned to the Lord who loved them and forgave all who turn to Him. Nineveh was not a small city (Jonah 3:3-4) (Day 17), and the conversions would have far reaching effect.

What a great testimony it could have been, and a good beginning and encouragement for the next message this prophet would be sent to give. “God sent me to Nineveh, to tell them He knew what they were up to, they repented and the whole city got saved, what an amazing God I serve, and you can serve Him too…”

Jonah’s focus was on himself, not on the Lord or on His good works, where is your focus today?

Action

Pray for the Lord to be the centre of all your thinking today.

Praise Him that He didn’t listen to Jonah’s sulking or his prayer that he should die. Praise God that in His wisdom He sometime says “no” to the prayers we pray.

Think today of difficulties you have asked God to take from you, but in retrospect you are glad He didn’t answer that prayer, because things turned out better in the end.

Read about the raising of Lazarus (John 11) and rejoice that Jesus didn’t go when they first called for Him.

For a full list of online studies available on this site, please click here.

If there is a subject you would like to see on this site, please use the comment section below or drop us an email (there’s a link at the very top of the page). We can’t promise to cover them all, and our studies are usually prepared a month or two in advance, so please be patient.

For a full list of physical resources available through this site, please click here.