I have been reminded by a truth from the Book of Jonah this week.  Fast forward the story in your mind, past the “disobeying God and fleeing on the ship part”.  Keep going past the “thrown overboard and swallowed by the big fish/whale” then the “whale spits up Jonah on dry land”.  Now slow down the rate of the story in your mind and picture Jonah walking towards Ninevah.

Jonah enters Ninevah and obeys God (I’m calling it grumpy obedience).  He warns the inhabitants of the coming of God’s wrath in forty days for their sinful behavior and then having fulfilled God’s command of him by his actions (though not his heart), he departs the city.

Jonah camps out at a distance from the city to watch events unfold, hoping that the inhabitants will be destroyed and angry that God might have mercy because Ninevah is repenting.

Now play through the story tape in your mind at the part where Jonah builds the shelter to protect himself while he is waiting.  God graciously provides shade by causing a leafy plant to grow high enough to block the sun from Jonah.  Ahhh, the wonderful provision for that day!  Thank you, God!  Then the next day, the plant is no more, eaten by a worm and Jonah gets the full force of blistering heat and scorching wind.  Where is the gratefulness now?  Jonah tells God he prefers death to his current existence.  Seriously, Jonah whines a lot…but then, isn’t he like us?  Isn’t he like me when I feel life just isn’t fair and I want to complain that what I had for a while I may not be able to keep?

I love God’s question to Jonah in Ch 4, NASB version…

⁹ Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?”

Jonah’s grumpy, self-absorbed reply reminds me of my own focus on myself at times…

And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”

Here is my lesson for the week.  God reminds Jonah who provided the shade from the plant in the first place…

¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which ^[h]came up overnight and perished ^[i]overnight.

God punctured Jonah’s furious self-pity at being scorched by the sun by reminding him that it was He that provided the plant shade.  Jonah’s contribution to the plant was 0% and yet in the course of one day, he grew accustomed to the provision and thought it was his due, that he somehow deserved it…entitlement at it’s finest.

So why did this lesson come to my mind this week?

Although I carefully avoid any reference to location to protect the anonymity of this blog, I think it is safe enough to say that the business that my husband and I own is a franchise.  We also have a separate business where we help develop the area where we live by assisting with franchise sales and mentoring existing franchises.

The problem is that a new CEO came on board last Fall and is putting egregious requirements on we developers.  Without going into a lot of detail, he is clearly trying to increase his profit by pushing out the developers.  We will likely be fighting what he is doing by legal action.  If he succeeds, it will have a significant detrimental impact on us financially, at a time that we need it as we have years of college expenses left for our younger kids.  There is a part of me that wants to (and has) scream much like Jonah did, “It’s not fair!”

I am reassured by the remembrance that when we first moved into the role of developing the territory, God brought 3 new franchises in “just like that”.  I have always said it was God’s grace because it happened without us trying, much like the plant that God caused to grow to give shade to Jonah when needed.  The income from the early years of being developers helped us survive as we were growing our business (they are separate entities).  If this income is removed from us, the picture in my mind is the shade plant that God removed according to His plan.

I need to remember that God gave us the extra financial help when we needed it early on and even though I can’t see anything but negative consequences if the extra income is removed, I need to trust God for the outcome.  He will take care of us in a different way if need be.