Failing to love

Jonah hit the beach thankful that God had spared him and was keen to complete his preaching mission in Nineveh. As he preached repentance he could hardly believe the success of his crusade. The whole city from the king down to donkeys clothed themselves in sackcloth. Jonah’s message had melted the coldest heart; what a crusade. But was God content or was Jonah a success/

Jonah did the right thing, but he was not yet the right person. So God comes to him again in Chapter 4.2 because God wanted him to learn to love. As he sits down in the glow of his success, God prepares a vine to grow over his head to give shade which Job enjoyed greatly. Then God prepared a worm to kill the vine and the shade, and Jonah wanted to die. God brings the whole lesson to close. Until you learn to love like me, you have not yet succeeded. To be a true prophet; to speak for me, to represent me, you need to represent my love.

Jonah’s failure was not really rebellion but actually a lack of love; he could not love as God did. Most failure is just a lack of love.

Failure helps us to see that we need to abide in His love, in order to love others. In the parable of the two debtors the man who failed to forgive failed to love! True success is not just persevering or never quitting. We may be inspired by the story of Disney who went broke seven times before he had success or Edison who did 10,000 experiments to perfect the light bulb before he had success, but real success is not about accomplishing something so much is becoming someone.

Friend, success is not the ultimate triumph but ultimate love it’s not what we have done, but who we become.