Siberia
"Would you do anything God wanted you to do?" I hesitated. "I think so." Then I added, "But what if he asked me to go to Siberia? I don't think I could do that." My friend nodded thoughtfully, as if God might speak to us later that day and ask us to go there.
No other prophet was sent to preach in a foreign city. When prophets spoke against foreign nations, they did so from Israel. Even when God sent Moses to Pharaoh, Moses refused to go. God had to argue with him, give him miraculous abilities, and provide Aaron as a companion for the journey. Only then was Moses willing to go. Jonah gets three commands: get up, go, and preach. Who wants to tell the Ninevites that a God they don't know has noticed how evil they are? Nineveh was genuinely evil. When the evil of Noah's generation came to God's attention, he sent the flood. The evil of Sodom came to his attention, and he destroyed it with burning sulfur and fire. A century before Jonah lived, the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II boasted about flaying people to death, then displaying their skins on the city walls. Assyrian kings decorated their palaces with reliefs that celebrated impaling prisoners of war. Nineveh deserved God's judgment. Instead, he sent Jonah to warn them. God says that Nineveh was a great city. In Jonah's day, Israel was politically ascendant, so he may have looked down on it. At other times, the city radiated power and terror. But most importantly, Nineveh mattered to God. So he sent Jonah to them. Instead of laughing at Jonah, consider how difficult his assignment was. Understanding Jonah helps us appreciate what Jesus did. Mark 1:14-15 tells us, "After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” It was right after King Herod Antipas arrested a prophet, whom he eventually beheaded, that Jesus started his ministry. I didn't want to go to Siberia. Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh. But God came to us.
How does God's assignment to Jonah change how you view God's mercy?
What's your Siberia? What are you afraid God might ask you to do?
When you've decided someone is outside the reach of God's mercy, how do you describe them? What person are you thinking about?
Open your hands before God. Say, "God, I need your strength to be kind to [name of the person you've been avoiding]. Please help me love them." Then, do something good for them.