Jonah 4:4 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these, and you'll have a better understanding of God's word and his perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in to today's scripture.

Hey, friends, welcome to day 32. We're in the Book of Jonah. Jonah's another one of those famous flannel graph characters from Egypt.

Oh, probably the most famous.

Yeah. He got eaten by a giant fish. But the story of Jonah is really a fascinating one. He was a prophet. God told him to go to a town called Nineveh. The Ninevites were sworn enemy of the Israelites. And Jonah didn't want to go because he hated these people. And even though God had said, but I love these people. So you go, jonah went the other way. He got in a boat, went the other way. God's in a storm. Jonah's like, well, I'm the reason for the storm. I'm just gonna get off the boat. So they have him jump off the boat. Essentially, storm stops. God sends a huge fish to eat Jonah.

It's crazy.

And in three days, and kind of being in an adult version of timeout, Jonah is in this smelly fish belly just talking to God and finally gets to that place of humility where he's like, all right, Lord, I'll do what you want. So the fish spits him up right there at the shore of Nineveh. And Jonah goes and preaches, and sure enough, these people actually repent, turn to God from the king all the way down, and they turn to God. And the irony of it is Jonah is mad that they get saved because he doesn't want them to go to heaven. Like, his heart is so hard toward these people that he's like, I can't believe that I had to go and be Part of teaching them about God's grace. And so he's pouting at the end of this book. And Jonah 4:4 says, the Lord replied, is it right for you to be angry about this? That's the whole verse. Is it right for you to be angry about this? And I love that. I love the whole story. But I think it's a great question for each of us, especially as it relates in our marriage when we get annoyed, something our spouse does. To ask yourself, is it right for me to be angry about this? Yeah. Like, every time I get angry, I want to ask myself that question. Because most of the time, that anger is not coming from some righteous anger. It's my own pride being wounded. It's my own selfishness being stepped on. Or it's just me being dumb.

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You know, I love how God posed a question to him. He didn't say, it is not right for you to be angry about this. Instead of, he asked him, jonah, how about some self reflection for a moment? And I just think that's such a good parent move, like the most perfect parent. Instead, when your kids come to an age where they can make these decisions, and this is in all the parenting books, it's like, if you can ask them a question to lead them to the right answer, then they know they came up with that answer and they feel like they own it. You know what I'm saying? Whereas if you just blatantly say it, which obviously in parenting we have to just sometimes give statements, but when you just make a statement, they wanna reject that because it's human nature. So here's God being this amazing parent that he is saying, like, why don't you think on this for a moment?

What do you think about this?

What do you think about this? And I love that because I do think as human beings, again, we're so prideful. We're so like, we wanna control. We wanna do our own plan. And Jonah, you know, was like, they're not worthy. Like, I'm this holy person over here, and you want me to go speak to these people who are not worthy of you, Lord? I mean, he's deciding who's worthy. And God's like, okay, now who am I, Jonah? You know, even after being In a fish. For I go to all these great lengths to bring this big old fish to swallow you up and keep you alive in there. And like you're hanging out in a fish and then I happen to spit you out in the place I wanted you to go in the first place and you're doubting my plans like, you know what I'm saying? Like, is this right for you to be angry? I just love that. But I do think that. But we still deal with this today. And I do think so many times in marriage especially, we are angry all the time about the wrong things. And it could be a lot of times it's pride that maybe our spouse, maybe we feel like they're sailing through life easier than us or they don't deserve something that we feel like we deserve. Or it's just we're kind of digging our heels in about a certain issue and not willing to give. And we just don't wanna give em the benefit of the doubt. We don't wanna hear them out. And I do think we need to really have that, you know, listen to that question that God posed to Jonah and have that time of self reflection. Because again, we don't wanna take the time to self reflect. We just wanna point fingers. But God is in this moment, he's saying, jonah, turn. You know, stop complaining, look at yourself and think, is my heart in the right place?

My heart in the right place? Cause sometimes our spouse is the ninevites to us.

Yes.

Like, you know, Jonah didn't want good things to happen to them because they had hurt him, they had offended him. Sometimes your spouse has hur. You don't want to be an instrument of God's grace in their life. You want them to suffer, not to receive healing or to have an opportunity to forgive. You don't even want them to know what they did wrong. You know, you just want them to suffer. Because Jonah is a picture of all of us. You know, we all have that pride sometimes where we want to decide who's worthy of God's grace while being blind to our own flaws and our own stubbornness and our own hardness of heart. And I just, I love the story. It's a short book in the Bible, but it's so good, it's a one. You and your spouse could just sit down and read the whole book together in probably 15 minutes and it could lead to some great conversations. But keep coming back to that question next time you're really frustrated with something. Is it right for me to be angry about this?

I think and sometimes it is.

And sometimes it is.

Sometimes it's a righteous thing, and they've really done something wrong that needs to be addressed.

But then what's the right thing for me to do with this anger?

Exactly.

I think that's a good question as well.

Yes. Well, I cannot wait until tomorrow because this I've had. I've loved these conversations. I feel like I'm learning so much, and I hope that, you know, one thing we want you guys to gain through this is not just listening to this, but it's really the conversations that you and your spouse have about these books in the Bible, but also about how they can relate to your lives. So make sure that when we give you those question prompts, like, make sure that you're talking through those things, because that's even. That's the best place part of all of this. It's not what we say, it's what you guys say to each other. And so make sure you join us tomorrow, day 33. We're going to be in the Book of Micah, and we will see you then.