Surprised by Grace

I've been reading a book by Tullian Tchividjian (yeah I can't pronounce it either) called Surprised by Grace.  In it, he details the Biblical story of Jonah and takes it to depths that I had never noticed before.  He connects the story of Jonah to the story of Christ quite nicely and has really made me look at the book in a different light. 

Jonah is interesting because, unlike most other prophets, he didn't fear failure, he feared success.  He didn't run from God because he thought the task that was asked of him was too difficult, but rather because he feared it was,  in a sense, too easy.  Nineveh was a drastically wicked place.  It was filled with all kinds of evil and idolatry, but God being full of love and mercy wanted to save them, despite them.  But Jonah wanted something else; he wanted their destruction.  After being spit out of the fish, he reluctantly travels to Nineveh to warn them of God's coming judgement, and the whole nation responds by repenting and turning to God for mercy, though they knew they didn't deserve it.  What was Jonah's reaction to all this?  Happiness?  Joy?  Heartfelt gladness that those who were lost were found?  That's what we would expect to see out of a prophet of God whose message a wicked and perverse nation had listened to.  Instead, Jonah is ticked.  Jonah 4:1 says that it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.  In fact, he prays in 4:3 and asks God to just go ahead and take his life, for "it is better for me to die than to live".  Tullian says Jonah may as well be shouting in God's face: "If I could do all this over again, I'd still run away from you--faster and farther!"

I guess it's fair to say he wasn't surprised by God's grace. He even says he knew God would forgive them if he delivered the message, and that's the very reason he ran.  Well I haven't finished the book yet, but I had to stop at this point.  Maybe the Ninevites had done something horrible to Jonah or his family in the past.  Maybe they had committed some great evil against his people that he just couldn't get over.  We aren't told.  We don't know why he reacted the way he did.  But I do know that I react the same way sometimes.  It's easy to judge from a distance, but what happens when people in your life who have wronged you go unpunished?  Or worse yet, what happens when they succeed?  I know for me, it's a bitter pill to swallow.

When you allow yourself to slip into that mindset, you're committing the same sin as Jonah.  You're refusing to grant others the same grace and mercy that has been extended to you.  What Jonah fails to acknowledge is that without the grace of God, he is in the same wicked, sinking boat as everyone else in Nineveh.  He assumes some kind of entitlement, that God owes him salvation, when the truth is, if God treated him fairly he would get Hell.  The same with you.  The same with me.

That's where I am surprised by grace.  I heard a preacher say once that it's easy to believe God loves us, we just don't think he likes us all that much.  I think that's true.  I know what holds me back a lot of times is I know I'm guilty and I know if I was treated fairly I wouldn't get grace, I would get hell.  I have a hard time believing that when God looks at me He doesn't see me but the righteousness of Christ.  On this subject, Tullian says "Through the gospel God counts your sins against Christ, not against you".  I would add that through the cross God counts Christ's righteousness against me, not Christ.  He didn't just die the death I should have died, but He lived the life I couldn't live.  And that's hard for me to get my head around.

So that's where I am in my spiritual journey as of late.  There's a lot of other stuff going on too, but I'll save that for later.

Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness.”