I am a Christian.  I know what I believe, I know how that belief impacts how I see things, my world view if you will.  Because I can and do post clearly about that world view and Christian belief system, I am also not then telling you what to believe or expecting anyone to adapt/adopt to my belief system.  However at the same time, I am what I am and my Christian faith is part of the mix.

Wanted to share this.

This is something that I learned yesterday.

I am not one of the "The Lord spoke to me and here's what He said" types.   However I have had moments when I have been certain it was the Lord speaking. Going to Sudan was one of those times. Clearly was the Lord's voice that I responded to and during those six years working in East Africa.  If you do have a relationship with the Lord where you know He speaks to you clearly and on a regular basis, that's great.  I'm just not one of those folks.

I was mowing the back yard yesterday and we have a self planted Mulberry tree. You can't get them anymore. They are considered trash trees. Weed trees if you will. If you remember them around the Valley of the Sun they are the ones folks would cut back to knubs in the winter and then come first heat, they pop out an incredible amount of branches and leaves and make instant shade. Some bird ate a mulberry tree fruit and pooped the seeds in my yard and now I have a mulberry tree. Been there for years. Love it for the instant shade it produces on the west side of our house/patio. Can be there since it is a "volunteer".

Part of the problem with mulberry trees is they kill everything underneath them.  Not only were they big and beautiful in folks front yards but they also create a big round spot of dirt where the grass died. The tree actively secrets and drops stuff from its leaves and flowers that kill any other living thing so as to preserve water and nutrients for the mulberry's own root system.

While I was mowing the back yard and heading to the dirt that is under our mulberry tree to cut the few shreds of grass and a weed or two under it the Lord said, "Hey, look, that's addiction..."

So I stopped and looked. Yep. A perfect example of addiction. Regardless of why us folks needed to create shade, we did, we needed it, in fact our lives depending on that shade and the reason for needing that shade does not also mean we are deficient or broken. Needing shade is part of being human.  Its that the method for creating that shade is itself killing everything else alive in us and around us. So we have shade. But the shade kills us either slowly or quickly. The goal for me is to reduce my need for shade, address what it is about me that needs shade, shade the stuff that really needs shade, dump the stuff that is of my own doing, and figure out how to have healthy shade. Of course all the time knowing that part of the problem is that my strategy was run by myself and not subject to an outside authority. My shade making strategy was unmanageable and out of control. I'm an addict. The shade in my backyard got me to thinking about shade in general and shade in Scripture.

All of that to get to this.

JONAH!

You know his story. Pissed off cause he knew his reputation would be destroyed one way or the other. Either what he would tell the folks in Nineveh would happen, or it wouldn't and he'd look like a liar and in those days, prophets who lie, they didn't get received so well. I understand his concern. So in a lose-lose situation, he ran. The Lord didn't let him get away. Jonah did end up in Nineveh and did what he was suppose to do. And as he predicted, what he prophesied did not happen, the Lord allowed the folks in Nineveh's repentance to stand, Jonah looked like a liar.

This is mostly the last chapter....


Jonah 3:10-4:11
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

CHAPTER 4

1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.
2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee 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.
3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"
5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.
6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.
7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.
8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."
9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.
11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
(NIV)


Talk about RECOVERY.

Hey Jonah, did YOU, anything in YOU, anything about YOU, have anything to do with the shade, the vine, the worm, etc? Is it not ALL from a power outside yourself there buddy? You do not have the power you seem to believe you have there My creature to impact My creation.....

Addict pity party? Angry?

Please consider the truth Jonah and just maybe you might get a clue as to what this is really about and what I used to you to accomplish. You may just have a shot at getting yourself rightly related to Me, the real authority outside your self and instead of all this anger, pity, you might just get a sense of compassion and forgiveness......

Compassion and forgiveness creates both the shade we need in a healthy way AND gets all the goofy stuff that is in fact not real stuff, but stuff of our own making gone and out of our lives.  Healthy shade if you will.

Jim