THE DIVINE WITHDRAWAL
Jonah 4:7-8: “But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint.”
But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.
In the previous devotion, we saw how the Lord prepared a plant to provide shade for Jonah but now we read of quite an opposite scenario. In the morning when Jonah awoke, something strange began to happen. One can imagine the restful sleep Jonah had that night, waking up refreshed, only to be met with a surprise he least expected - the plant that he was so grateful for was beginning to wither before his very eyes. But How? The same God who made miraculous provision and offered protection for Jonah had now prepared something else – a worm. This worm began to do something rather strange and disastrous - it damaged the plant so badly that the plant withered.
There’s certainly a lesson for Jonah to learn from this act of God, but it’s also important that we The Church of today can learn from this act of God.
Not every problem we face is from the evil one, there are times when the Lord himself must bring upon us trouble for the sole purpose of shaking us up and waking us up from our slumber and our lackadaisical attitude to both Him and to life itself. There are times when we become so comfortable with the blessings of God that we tend to think that these blessings were meant for us, and us alone, and forget the fact that we were blessed that we might be a blessing to others as well.
Just as Jonah was grateful for the plant that God provided to protect him from the heat of the sun, we too have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy many of God’s blessings of provision and protection. If we are alive and well during this global pandemic, it’s itself proof of God’s protection over our lives. But if we fail to learn lessons from God’s mercy and protection, the Lord may have to temporarily withdraw His hand of mercy and protection from us to teach us a lesson, just as He did for Jonah. The Lord did that several times in the days of the people of Israel in the Old Testament when they rebelled against the Lord and walked in their own sinful ways. He did this, not to destroy them, but rather out of love for them – to bring them back to Him, and He might have to do the same thing to us The Church if we fail to turn back to Him.
The Lord only needed to prepare a worm – something so small and seemingly insignificant, and that did the job God had prepared for it to do – remove the protection Jonah enjoyed. The worm merely damaged the plant and that was sufficient for it to wither. Could Jonah have expected that a small worm could destroy such divine protection he enjoyed? When God decides to do something, it doesn’t matter what He uses – it will accomplish His purpose.
Similarly, we The Church need to remember that if the Lord wants to get our attention, he can do anything, even use a microscopic virus to infect not only the world but even us The Church. Have we not all experienced the effects of this microscopic, seemingly invisible virus as it infected and even sometimes took the lives of friends, family, and loved ones? This is certainly the Lord’s way of getting the attention of both the world and The Church as well. It’s not enough for us to enjoy God’s protection and provision, we need to acknowledge the giver of it as well. The Lord seems to have a greater message for us The Church as it relates to the world around us, but we will look at that in the next devotion.
And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind
As the morning dawned, the Lord prepared the worm, but then when the sun rose, the Lord prepared something more – a vehement east wind. This is the 5th time we see the Lord preparing or sending something Jonah’s way. The first thing that God sent his way was the tempest that almost destroyed the ship, the sailors, and all. The second thing that God prepared was the big fish to swallow him and eventually vomit him onto dry land so as to save him from the raging waters, the third thing that God prepared was the plant to provide Jonah with shade from the heat of the sun, the fourth was the worm to damage the plant and cause it to wither and then the fifth thing that God prepared was the vehement east wind. If you notice, you’ll find that the same God at certain times sent things Jonah’s way to hurt him and at other times, He sent things Jonah’s way to help him, the former to stop us in our tracks and get us back to Him and the latter, to move us forward to accomplish all that He desired to in our lives when He called us.
The Lord has the right to do what He wills for whom He wills for whatever reason He wills. It’s evident throughout scripture that the Lord chastised His children when they deserved it and this was done in love so that they would cease from rebelling against Him and return to Him. Jonah’s adventure is one such rebellious scenario. There were times that the Lord prepared things to stand in Jonah’s way and there were times when the Lord prepared things for Jonah for his protection. The tempest was meant to stop Jonah, the great fish to protect him, the plant was meant to protect him, the worm to remove God’s protection, and finally, the vehement east wind to bring misery upon him. All this was done by the same God to the same person – Jonah, but for different reasons at different times.
Has not the Lord worked in similar ways in our own lives as well? When He wanted to get our attention, there were times He permitted or even brought about certain difficult situations in our lives, and when He wanted to encourage us on in our journey, the Lord provided and protected us miraculously. This global pandemic seems like one such time that the Lord is trying to get our attention once again, drawing us back to Himself – to the love we once had for Him – a love that resulted in our lives being transformed and also resulted in us getting so involved in reaching and discipling those outside The Church, so that their lives were also transformed through us. Let’s not for one moment think that the Lord will shower His blessings on us forever if we choose to rebel against Him continually. He is patient, kind, and longsuffering, but He is also just and loving and will do what it takes to get us back on track. We can learn things the easy way or the hard way – it’s up to us, and it’s we who stand to gain or lose in the process.
When on the sea, the Lord sent a violent tempest, when on land, He sent a vehement east wind – the former caused a raging of the waves, while the latter perhaps causing heavy dust storms, which would have dried his palate, his skin and made him feel extremely miserable. The Lord who created the winds has the power to do what He wills with them, even if it means causing temporary discomfort to His children, so as to get our attention. Not every storm in our lives is caused by God - there are some that we bring upon ourselves by the bad decisions we make in life, while there are those that the enemy (the devil) will bring our way to try to deter us from our walk with the Lord. But there are those that the Lord Himself will bring upon us and we need to know which of these are the results of our own bad decisions, which are from the devil and which are from the Lord Himself.
We The Church, need to remember that the God of grace and mercy is also the God of Justice and Love – love that chastises His children when they need it. We have rebelled against the Lord in more ways than we can count. We’ve become lackadaisical and rather rebellious against the Lord’s will for us as His body. We’ve chosen to live for ourselves and even so, at the expenses of those we were meant to serve in the first place. God, who is just, will not remain a silent spectator to this sort of rebellious, selfish behaviour from His children – He will intervene and in ways that He knows best. We can either return to Him on our own or prepare ourselves for worse days ahead, which will serve as a means to bring us back to God.
“…and the sun beat on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint.”
When God removed the plant, and then prepared the east wind, the next thing that happened was that the sun from which Jonah was protected by God began to beat directly on his head and this caused him to grow faint. When protection is provided, it means that there is something harmful that one is being protected from, but if the protection is taken away, then immediately the person gets exposed to whatever it was he was being protected from. Jonah was being protected from the burning desert sun, and with the protection gone, he was now fully exposed to it.
We The Church have enjoyed tremendous blessings of the Lord over the years. We’ve enjoyed immense freedom to take God’s word to the world, but we’re gradually beginning to see a turn of events globally. Slowly but steadily this freedom is being taken away from us in many parts of the world. We The Church are not able to do the things we used to do for centuries – have access to and share God’s Word, meet freely as churches, be involved in outreach and discipleship, conduct training to equip the Body of Christ, etc. It seems like the Lord has brought about some kind of withdrawal of our freedom in the way we function. We can do two things in response to what we’re experiencing with this global pandemic. We can grumble against God, and make no change in the way we live our lives, or we can stop, ponder our ways, repent and return to the Lord with all our heart, before something worse happens to us.
Just like Jonah felt the effects of the scorching heat of the sun on his head, that caused him to grow faint, many of us in The Church have, during this pandemic, either heard of people experiencing, (or have personally experienced) a lack of motivation to do anything. Some of us have even had symptoms of depression, and all on account of this small microscopic, invisible-to-the-naked-eye virus. But still, despite this feeling of weakness, discouragement, and low motivation, let’s make every effort to return to the Lord, knowing that He is ever willing to receive us with open arms to Himself and restore us to that place of intimate relationship we once enjoyed with Him.
May the Lord bless you and have a great day or night.
