“BUT GOD!”

Jonah 4:5-11                                          (ESV)

“5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

6 Now the LORD GOD appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So JONAH WAS EXCEEDINGLY GLAD because of the plant.

7 But when dawn came up the next day, GOD APPOINTED a WORM that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

8 When the sun rose, GOD APPOINTED a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

9 “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."

10 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.

11 And should not I pity Nineveh, 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?"”

There are times when I start feeling sorry for myself, even with my amazing story of Deliverance from GOD ALMIGHTY.  This morning is/was one of those days!  The pressures of work, compounded by what I Believe GOD has Planned for me to do IN HIS TIMING, have been causing me to be a little on edge.  But this morning I was reading in the book of Jonah and I SEE where GOD was so minutely involved with Jonah’s life that HE directed A WORM to kill a plant FOR HIS GLORY!  

That caused me to recall my testimony about the Brain Hemorrhage that I wrote while recovering from the same, and it made me realize how the enemy can blind us from SEEING GOD’s majestic work right in front of our very eyes!  Most have heard (probably many times!) about the letter written by yours truly on August 15, 2002 supporting the transfer of the Neurologist to the same hospital where I would go on July 09, 2007, almost five years later!  The letter was faxed to a United States Senator’s office and then promptly filed away and forgotten about.  When I recovered enough to go back to work, the letter was found in a file and shown to me.  I literally had to sit down weep, then show the letter to the same Neurologist.  He couldn’t believe it either!  

GOD is so intricately involved with our lives that HE is right with us, regardless of how we seem to act as though we are ALL ALONE!  Jonah felt this way, even after seeing GOD deliver the city of Nineveh from destruction.  Jonah actually wanted GOD to destroy Nineveh because of their prior actions.  “BUT GOD”, GOD wanted to show HIS Glory through the Ninevites!  GOD’s Plan didn’t fit Jonah’s idea of what should happen, so he was angry about the results.  

Now I could not have dreamed up a scenario in 2002 where I would end a Neurologist.  The letter was written for a friend who worked at the aforementioned hospital.  “BUT GOD”, I believe, wanted to display to me how much HE is capable of using our imperfect work for HIS Glory, IN HIS TIMING!  Our sufferings (Romans 5:3-5) are sometimes sent to Glorify HIM, using us for HIS Glory!  “BUT GOD” is masterfully IN CONTROL of our lives, just as HE was with Jonah, and we are not!   “BUT GOD!!!”