Oak and his brothers are coming over later. As soon as he walks in the front door, I know what he’ll say, “What are we doing today, Ma’am?”

The others will hug me and look around at the lights and ornaments, but Oakie will want to know first if there’s a plan in place, and if there’s not, “Well, here’s an idea….” I love this about him because it’s the way I operate: Make plans. See what works out. Repeat.

Sometimes what I suggest and what he wants to do don’t match up. We’ve tried going with my idea, but it’s usually a bust. If Oak’s not into it, we might as well scrap it and start over. Even when his idea busts, it works out better not to have pushed anything. Better to let him learn his way.

God operates something like this. He doesn’t push. He woos. He waits for us to come around.

Jonah

God sends his prophet Jonah to a violent city to tell them to repent. Already, I’m feeling the tension. He sends Jonah, a Hebrew-nobody from nowhere-Israel, to the big city? What’s he gonna do, stand on the street corner and holler? You know the story, how he hops on a ship, gets swallowed by a fish, and starts over again at square one. In fact, God uses the same exact words to tell him to get going again, Jh 1:1-2, 3:1-2.

In Jonah’s day, Assyria is a world power known for atrocities like cutting off human hands and feet, or filleting folks alive, or stacking up victims’ skulls beside city gates. Ninevites don’t know right from wrong, much less who God is. Because their sins are so egregious, God sends Jonah in, Jh 4:10-11 MSG (click for history, click for commentary).

The king’s proclamation after he gets Jonah’s message is more eloquent than what Jonah said. Either Jonah didn’t bother elaborating when he wrote it down, or he literally only said just the seven words that he recorded, “In forty days, Ninevah will be smashed,” Jh 3:4, 6-9 MSG.

Maybe Jonah preached a skimpy sermon on purpose so folks wouldn’t listen. He’s got issues, we find out, one of which is that if they repent, the disaster he’s prophesied won’t come about, and how will that make him look? Like a prophet who makes much ado about nothing, is what. Predicting a disaster that happens would be something to write home about.

But the Ninevites were pierced to the core anyway. From rich to poor, humans to animals, they repent and put on sackcloth and call a city-wide fast. It’s an impressive response. God moves in them in spite of Jonah’s sparse sermon, Jh 3:5.

But Jonah’s not impressed. It’s exactly what he thought would happen. It’s why he ran away to Tarshish in the first place. He knew God would forgive the city if they repented, because he knows God is “sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn [his] plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness,” Jh 4:1-2 MSG.

Jonah goes outside the city to pout about it. What’s in it for me? is on his mind, not what’s in it for Ninevah, let alone what God wants. Jonah may have repented inside the belly of the fish, but his heart’s still belly up—he’s all about himself. Never mind that the people and their animals are saved, Jonah would rather die, Jh 2:1-9, 4:5-11.

That’s the thing about living. You don’t get to decide how things pan out. You don’t get to dictate other people’s choices. You don’t get to control what God does. Jonah thinks he knows how life should turn out, and when it doesn’t go his way, he’s angry enough to die about it. He asks three times for God to kill him on the spot, because he’d rather be dead than live life with God calling the shots, Jh 4:3, 8-9.

This is God’s prophet? 

Yes, and I’m glad, to be honest. Jonah helps me relax. I don’t have to have it all together to tell people about God. I don’t have to get it exactly right. It’s not on me to make anybody see. Did you notice that a whole city repents because of a sermon from a preacher who doesn’t care if they listen?

Clearly, God’s the one speaking here. He uses anyone he chooses, and his choice doesn’t even have to do it very well. It’s God’s words and his Spirit that move people’s hearts, not the prophet who’s talking.

What Jonah needed before he preached to Ninevah was to preach to himself about his need to repent . He might’ve asked himself, Why do I want my way so badly that I want to die if I can’t have it? Jonah needed to start with where he really was, “God, I’m not the guy…I don’t care about these people…I want to run…”.

When we come to God, we start with where we are. We can’t be open to hear him or do what he asks if we’re pretending. It takes a humble person to tell the truth about himself. Jonah wasn’t.

I know, because God’s forgiveness provoked anger, not gratitude, an anger so hot he’d rather rot than rejoice that 120,000 people were saved. Grace offends Jonah. Was God going to just let anyone worship him, even violent, nasty Ninevites? What’s next, hookers and drug addicts?

That’s the thing about grace. It’s scandalous. It’s humbling. It reminds us how ordinary we are, how unworthy, and how we need help, just like everybody else.

It’s when we humble ourselves and relax our grip that we find ourselves carried and cared for by the God who holds everything up.

Relax your grip by trusting God’s got you.

Revelation 5

John’s looking in on the throne room where all heaven worships. An angel with a booming voice asks if anyone can break the seals and open the scroll God’s holding. One of the elders points out Jesus, the Lion-of-a-Lamb, who steps up. He can, Re 5:1-5 .

And that’s when all heaven breaks loose. Creatures and elders fall over themselves. Harps play, no doubt strummed by unseen hands, and the prayers of God’s people rise from golden bowls like incense. Thousand x ten thousands of angels join in, and the noise amps up as “they sing a new song” for all they’re worth, Re 5:6-12 MSG.

Then all creatures, all over earth and sky, in underworld and sea, join in and sing their hearts out to the One-on-the-Throne and to the Lamb. It’s a ruckus so glorious, every voice in the universe is heard, Re 5:13 MSG.

This praise party is in celebration of Jesus, the Lion-like Lamb, the Lamb-like Lion, who paid with blood for the men and women he’s saved and made a Kingdom of. Because he’s done it, he’s worthy of all “the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength…the honor, the glory, the blessing!” Re 5:12 MSG.

The worship of heaven focuses on what Jesus has done on earth, which tells me that saving is the point of human history, and that finding our way to God through Jesus is the reason we’re here in the first place. This is the journey we’re all taking. And there’s a whole lotta singing going on to celebrate it.

If worship like this is where we’re headed, it makes sense to fill up our tanks with it here–and often. Who knows how it might boost our moods, retool our desires, change our want-to’s? Who knows how Jonah might’ve lived differently, and how we’d live differently, if we lived filled up with praise rather than on flat empty?

If you’ve experienced it, you get it. If you haven’t, it’s not hard. Find a song that moves you and sing it with all you’ve got to “the Lamb who was slain.” You don’t have to wait—you can start even now, Re 512 NIV.

Relax your grip by hanging out in heaven-on-earth and singing for all you’re worth.

Psalm 133

It’s wonderful when family members get along. It’s a miracle as astonishing as when dew from one mountain flows down slopes of another miles away. Impossible really, Ps 133:3.

Getting along as a church family is just as difficult, maybe more so.  But it’s worth what it costs us.  It’s like an expensive perfume that delights everyone.  It’s like a costly oil that nourishes and soothes, Ps 133:1-2.  

Ask God for it. Do your part to promote it. Getting along with each another is “where God commands the blessing.” And it does’t just happen. It’s given. Let’s pass it around, Ps 133:3 MSG.

Relax your grip by enjoying God’s people.

Prayer

God, Help me trust that you’ve got me and those I love. Pry my fingers loose from the controller I think I’m holding and lift my hands and heart to you. Help me believe that worshiping you is what I most need, not the perfect anything.

In Jesus’ name.

Psalm 29:26-27

Everyone wants help from the leader, but it’s God who gives justice.
Good and bad people repel each other.

Passages in Jonah, Revelation, Psalms and Proverbs are selected for today in The One Year Bible.