Narcissistic personality disorder. is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. I think we’ll see this disorder in Jonah. The Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh. He said Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it…” (Jonah 1:2) Jonah boarded a ship going the other way, so “…the LORD PREPARED A GREAT FISH to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17) God steered this “great fish” to Nineveh and deposited Jonah on the shore, “Jonah began to enter the city…he cried out and said, “…forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them…God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and HE DID NOT DO IT.” (Jonah 3:4,5, 10) Jonah had just spent the last three days preaching the “dooms day” message and when God changed His mind, “…it displeased Jonah EXCEEDINGLY, and he became angry.” (Jonah 4:1)
Jonah told the Lord that this made him look bad after he spent all this time warning the people and now God changed His mind. Jonah prepared a booth to sit in and see what would happen. It was extremely hot so God prepared a plant that grew overnight and gave shade to Jonah then God prepared a worm that destroy this plant causing Jonah great stress, it can get as hot as 1400 so along with the east wind, Jonah wished for death. “…the LORD said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I NOT PITY NINEVEH, that great city, in which are more than ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left…” (Jonah 4:10-11) “THIS IS LOVE, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (to make favorable) for our sins. Beloved, if God SO LOVED US, WE ALSO OUGHT TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” (1 John 4:10-11) Let’s make sure in our prayers for others that it is for UNSELFISH REASONS that we pray and make requests to God for them.
-Bill Stockham