Rev. Lou Lotz leads us in God's Word from Jonah 3:1-4:1. --- “Look out!” This is what Jonah is supposed to proclaim to Nineveh. Yet as we know from the familiar story, Jonah runs the other way. We should only judge Jonah for doing so to the degree that we can see ourselves in his sandals. Jonah would justifiably not want to go to Nineveh. For one, it’s a wicked city, not a vacation destination. Secondly, the Ninevites are the enemies of Israel. Those people have been cruel to the Israelites. In Jonah’s mind, God shouldn’t want to help those people. Whatever wrath of God they’ve got coming, they deserve it. But wouldn’t it be fun to tell your enemies that their wickedness has risen up against God? Wouldn’t we relish the opportunity for an “I told you so” type of moment? Yet we hear later from Jonah that he didn’t want to tell the Ninvevites to repent because he was worried that God may indeed relent. “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2) Jonah didn’t want to warn Nineveh, because he was worried it would work! We all have our Nineveh and Ninevites, those whom we wish to see fail. The ex-spouse, the former employer, the other church that hurt you, this group or that group. The individual experiences that burr into our hearts or the groups we create of good guys and bad guys, insiders and outsiders. We all have a Nineveh, and in that way we ought to find Jonah quite relatable, and have the Holy Spirit speak a convicting word to us through Jonah’s witness that our enemies are not God’s enemies. And this is why we need the witness of this particular book in Scripture, to remind us that God is not our personal possession. “For God so loved the world…” Our enemies are not God’s enemies, and thankfully we aren’t in charge of who gets mercy and who doesn’t. The Lord decides these matters. Like Jonah, we have our moments where we know better. You know what you’re supposed to do, what you need to do, what God’s calling you to do, and yet you don’t do it because you don’t want to. Don’t expect God to leave you alone! The very same God who is gracious and compassionate to those “enemies” or ours, is also gracious and compassionate to us. We belong to God, not the other way around! God is not our personal possession. Jesus shows us perfectly that the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Jesus shows us by his own example that he didn’t run away from us like Jonah would, but came close to us. So might we pray, “Forgive us, O God. God, turn us around and send us where you would have us go. Thank you for pursuing us even where we try to hide.”