Pity the Plant

We are enjoying a short visit from my in-laws this week and last night we pulled out a favorite board game of ours to play after the kids went to bed.  The game was a train-themed game called Ticket to Ride where you draw various destination cities and attempt to build trains to link up these cities to earn points.  Well, let me preface this discussion by saying that I am very blessed to have wonderful, loving, godly in-laws, and my mother-in-law is especially helpful and loving to me and to our kids.  However, my mother-in-law is also very competitive when it comes to games and this night was no exception!  She decided to go for broke and play out her trains (on nonsensical routes, mind you!), leaving the rest of us with many unfinished destinations and having to subtract out large amounts of points from our hand at the end of the game (I personally had to deduct 30 points!).  So, after the game, when we turned in for the night, I found myself feeling bitter and angry--why did she have to do that?  I mean, really stick it to us?  In fact, I woke up the next morning still thinking about it.  I prayed to the Lord to renew my mind and forgive my prideful and vengeful thoughts and He was very gracious to take me right to the Book of Jonah, in the 4th chapter when Jonah is incensed about the plant that had quickly grown up to give him shade, and then quickly withered and died, leaving him in the scorching wind and sun.  Jonah is furious that the Lord would take away his shade tree, and yet, he feels no pity for the people of Ninevah, who are about to be annihilated should they continue to reject God and not repent!  You see, Jonah is more emotionally involved in his shade tree (and his own comfort and pride!) than the people who are without Christ (and did I mention he was a preacher in his day?!)!

"But God said to Jonah, 'Do you do well to be angry for the plant?'  And he said, 'Yes I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.' And the Lord said, 'You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. and should not I pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000  persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" Jonah 4:9-11

But are WE not like that, too?  I can get more incensed about the "injustices" of a board game than I do about the genocide happening in the Darfur region of Sudan!  What about you?  Can you get more angry about flight delays or cancellations, or if a sales clerk forgets to apply a coupon to your purchase, or if you get cut off in a line of traffic...than you do about all the injustices happening around the globe to God's people? People are trafficked into slavery, go without clean water and basic health care, are persecuted and beaten and imprisoned for their faith...and yet we choose to pity the plant!  God ended the Book of Jonah with a question in Jonah 4:11 (quoted above)...leaving us to answer that very question for ourselves!  Will you join me as we repent from our perceived injustices over petty little "plants" and seek to have a heart that is burdened by the things that burden the Lord?  I pray we do!

--And here is another little gem over in Isaiah 49:10 that I discovered later in the day--
"they shall not hunger or thirst,
    neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
    and by springs of water will guide them."

Praise the Lord that HE pities US and will not allow a scorching wind and sun to harm us!  Oh the riches we have in Christ, that we have been reconciled with God!  Oh, how I love how the Lord weaves His Word together for us, to gently show, convict, and guide!