Angry at God
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:1-3 (NIV)
The mercy God extended toward Nineveh upset Jonah terribly, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Jonah was furious. He lost his temper, and he yelled at God.
Jonah decides, I’m going to tell God exactly how I feel, and he unleashes his anger towards God—and God accepts it. Don’t miss that. He listens to Jonah and accepts his anger because God accepts all of our emotions and He gives us freedom and safety to express them, even when they are about us being angry with God.
We understand Jonah’s anger, don’t we? Many of our social ills are our fault because we human beings have decided to define our morals, ethics, philosophies, and ideologies. We know that God sometimes exerts His sovereignty in human affairs and that at other times, God permits the full results of humanity’s choices. How He chooses which to allow and which to arrange can be confusing to us.
So like Jonah, we are angry. Now the question becomes, what do we do with this anger?
You must fight to not let your anger and disappointment choke out your obedience to God. He has already moved on your behalf enough times and with enough power that—even while you don’t understand—you can trust Him. You can trust that God, who gives you profound love, will also accept your deep hurt and anger and will, in turn, unfold the mystery of His will in all of it.
An Act of Obedience
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering…
Genesis 4:1-4 (NIV)
The first thing we read about Cain and Abel is that Abel kept flocks and Cain worked soil. The very next thing we read about them is that both of them gave to God from the flock and from the field—they both gave offerings to God.
It forces you to focus on how early in Scripture we see obedience and love for God being demonstrated in the giving of offerings to the Lord. Before Scripture ever tells us about building an altar, before Scripture introduces us to the construction of a temple, before Scripture gives us liturgy that shapes Israel’s worship, there is the offering of firstfruits to the Lord resulting from labor.
It sets undeniable expectations regarding how God interacts with us. Cain and Abel must have been taught that God gets your first and God gets your best. The question then becomes, where did they learn this from? Where did Adam and Eve learn what they, in turn, taught Cain and Abel? They apparently learned it from God. God taught them that offerings ought to be given.
We see the fruit of their teaching and how the whole offering expectation reveals the condition of the human heart and spirit—the love, or absence of love, one has for God, the duty and devotion that is to be an undeniable part of living in relationship with the God who creates and sustains. Humans did not create giving. This is not a human-created construct. The expectation connected to spiritual growth, the demonstration of love for God, the exercise of spiritual discipline—this was God’s idea.
God determined that one of the ways you grow in Him, relate to Him, and demonstrate love and gratitude is to give. Stop letting people make you afraid to engage the connection between how you love God and how you give. Don’t let people make you unnerved when it comes to loving Jesus and it being reflected in how you even think about money. Scripture teaches that even before we are introduced to a percentage of giving or the regularity of giving or the generosity connected to our giving, we are introduced to the fact that it ought to be out of our first, and it ought to be our best.
The Way God Wants to Be Seen
The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.
They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?
Acts 13:4-10 (NIV)
Saul has been doing ministry among Jews in Damascus and Jerusalem, then is shipped off to Tarsus. Now, encountering a sorcerer while witnessing to the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus, it signals that the Lord’s invitation is moving beyond the Jews and salvation is being offered to the Gentiles. Saul, named after Israel’s first king from the tribe of Benjamin, also had the Roman name Paul at birth. Luke uses Paul here because it suits evangelism to a Roman official and Gentiles. The Lord needed him to show up in this new space in a way that helped God accomplish His will.
Paul is sharing the gospel with a Roman official, part of that world that connects with his Roman name. God at times needs you to show up in ways that make His presence more inviting and impactful. The challenge is: Can you accept in faith that the Lord is asking you to show up in spaces based not on how you want to be presented, but how He wants to be presented? How you’re seen in one space may differ from another, requiring sensitivity to the Spirit to steward how He expects you to be heard.
Sometimes we want to show our full selves—opinions, brilliance, titles—but feel convicted to limit it, to listen more than talk. It’s all about how you steward yourself so that you won’t frustrate how the Lord wants to be seen.
The gospel sounds the same from Saul as it does from Paul, but it will impact the official’s life when received from a fellow Roman citizen, Paul, rather than Saul. Where the Lord has you and who He has you around is so that He can be seen and heard to make salvation and the kingdom a priority.
We often say, “I’m not changing for anyone,” preferring our own ways. But the text teaches that the Lord expects us to steward our lives to support the gospel’s impact. The principle is: Be your whole self everywhere, but steward your whole self with the Spirit. How you show up aligns with how He wants to be revealed in that space.
The God Who Protects
After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
Acts 9:23-28 (NIV)
There is such disbelief in Saul’s conversion that some of the Jews there in Damascus decide, “We won’t wait for him to prove it; we’re going to kill him.” The opposition is so strong that Saul is held up in the house of one who believes in his life’s mission and ministry. Jews have posted themselves at the gates of the city, hoping that they can catch Saul trying to escape from Damascus and kill him at the city gate. Why? Because he has surrendered to Jesus and surrendered to being shaped for ministry in the Lord’s name.
Following Jesus brings a lot of celebration, but it upsets some people. It confuses and confounds those whose morals and ethics are excessively self-serving. Believing in and living for Jesus causes debate among those who believe differently. It often inflames people who are trying to figure out how you cross so far over compared to who you used to be. And if Saul represents all of us who have said yes to Jesus, it suggests that at times we need to sit in witness protection because all the entrances and exits that invite us to move freely in the Lord are blocked by those who are trying to kill us. But there is good news. The good news is the Lord not only calls, the Lord not only blesses, the Lord not only anoints, the Lord not only prepares, but the Lord also protects.
Saul’s history has to include a day where somebody had to stand up for him, open a door for him, and put their reputation on the line for him. This scripture reminds every one of us to never forget that there are people connected to us that God has assigned to encourage us, to open doors for us, to vouch for us, to put their personality and reputation and capacities on the line so that the Lord can plant you and place you where He divinely intends.
Faith Between the Lines
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.
Acts 9:26-31 (NIV)
The Lord engaged Saul on the road just outside of Damascus. God has changed his heart. God has given him a vision. God has transformed his life. His preaching makes it very easy to discern that the Lord is working in and through his life. Barnabas vouches for Saul: “Brothers, he’s good. He speaks boldly. He speaks Christ-centered truth.” And that was enough—you would think—to create safe space for Saul. Yet Saul discovers that your gifts can make a whole lot of room for you, but some of that room is not welcoming room.
Whatever Saul was preaching to the Hellenistic Jews, it made them feel so offended, so threatened, so challenged that rather than just turn down the volume of his voice, they’re trying to kill him. They want Saul dead. How deflating that must have felt. It almost seems like a strange way to validate that the Lord has laid His hands on him.
It’s so energy-draining to love the Lord enough to own Him yet be treated so badly because of it. It can be confusing that God begins with such powerful demonstrations of might and strength, only to seemingly leave holes and openings in what ought to be an impenetrable hedge of protection. This allows us to draw closer to God by watching how He strongly exercises His sovereignty in one season, and then, in another season, it looks like God leaves us out to dry.
Why is spiritual growth so hard? Why can’t it be easy to accept the invitation to accept Christ and have everybody around you celebrate that you found Jesus? This can make you become so deflated. That is until you learn that faith is not just the sum total of the content that makes up the sentences, but faith is also how God moves in between the lines. Even if we don’t like the way the sentences are written, we can thank Him for moving in between the lines so that we can end up saying, “What the enemy meant for evil, God has turned for my good.”
