Under the Broom Tree

Came to the end of Jonah today.  It's always kind of bitter sweet to come to the end of a study.  Kind of like coming to the end of a good movie and just not even knowing that to do next.  And let's face it, the "ending" of Jonah left a bit to be desired.  It didn't tie anything up in a nice neat bow.  But it was still RICH in application and insight.  Insight I needed, especially at this super busy time of year.

We have seen Jonah through lots of stuff ...

• receiving God's call to Nineveh and subsequently deciding that's not for him. 
• boarding a ship for Tarshish
• getting in a God-sized storm

• getting thrown out and swallowed by a whale

• spending three days in the belly and making lots of promises to God if He sees fit to rescue
• getting thrown up/out of the whale
• getting sent right back to where he didn't want to go in the first place ... Nineveh
• seeing the king call people to repentance
• being royally ticked off that he was right all along and God sent him here and then was just gonna save the people anyway (which, by the way, did you know they did defeat the Israelites just a few years later ... Jonah wasn't so wrong!!)
• having a Broom Tree to sulk under

• Having God get in his face about being angry and being reminded that people are more important that trees (sounds like a bumper sticker for the anti-tree huggers!)

... and there it ends.

But really, it doesn't.  Because I am still thinking of the closing conversation between God and Jonah ... and probably will be for a while  Well, really it was a tad one-sided but given Jonah's state of mind, that is probably better.

Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?"

Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"

God said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"  Jonah 4:9-11

WOW!  As I read that it kind of reminded me of the kids who get helium balloons at a party.  And they love that balloon and take it everywhere ... until the next morning when it is hanging limp in the floor.  It was fun while it lasted and it stinks that it's gone in just a day!  So with Jonah's tree.  It was great and he was happy and then it was gone.  Worm food.  And he was ridiculously furious!!

Jonah was so wrapped up in his idea of justice for Nineveh that he failed to see the people.  He just saw a situation ... one he didn't like.  He didn't put names with faces.  He didn't look at individual lives.  

I wish it was different, but I do the same thing.  I get so wrapped up in things and stuff that people are no longer the priority.  Just thinking about this weekend and all I want to get accomplished before I go home ... it's easy to let the people part of that fall to the wayside because I have so many tasks I would like to get accomplished.  Maybe it's the introvert in me ... maybe it's the detail personality ... but I have a hard time balancing people and tasks sometimes.  I enjoy people if I can get the stuff done first.  Maybe that's a better way to put that. 

For instance, I dragged the Christmas boxes in from the garage last night determined to get them back out in the garage before I leave for home. I LOVE, LOVE a decorated home, but HATE the look that my garage threw up all over my living room.  So it seemed better to deal with that now, when I am facing a week off rather than when I get back, tired and facing the last big push before finals.  I also need to change from summer clothes to winter.  I also have a fun dinner invite tomorrow night to David and Callie's new house ... and church and a potluck Sunday ... and hmmm ... probably should pack ... and a funeral I should go to ... and a friend with a tentative diagnosis of Lupus who I'd love to take a goodie basket to ... and I might want to see Gavin in there ... would definitely love to see Harry Potter in there ... I mean, you get the picture.  I am struggling today to make the "people" stuff more of a priority than the other stuff.  God's pretty clear which is more important. 

My boss wisely says, "People always precede tasks."  In the end it won't matter which closet my sweaters are in.  In the end it will matter whose life I left footprints in.  I think I'm gonna work on that!