Have You Reason To Be Angry?

From today’s reading…

You know that feeling you get when someone cuts in front of you in traffic and you have these visions of being a NASCAR driver where you nudge that jerk and cause him to spin out, hit the wall, eject him into the nearby dairy farm where he lands face-first into a fresh pile of cow manure just as the local news is doing a documentary on cows and films the whole thing, including the part where he gets up crying like a baby because his $5,000 Italian suit is ruined and you realize he’s an infamous business man whose sad face is plastered all over the internet causing his company’s stock to crash, he’s kicked off the board of his own company, he’s forced into bankruptcy, and a year later he’s selling flowers out of a paint bucket on that same street where he cut you off?

What’s that?

You’re not that mean and vindictive?

It’s just Jonah—who wanted a city of 120,000 to be smote by God even though they repented—and me?

Fine. (But please realize I’m a work in progress, okay?)

Jonah was also a work in progress, and God loved him enough to bring discomforts to him in the form of a withered gourd and a burning wind to get his attention.

God does not want pain, discomfort, and death to come to us. 

He wants us to listen to Him so we can spend eternity with Him, which means we must accept the hardships He brings our way so we can focus on His plans for us, which is the only way to…

Stay the course. Keep the faith. Endure.