Jonah must have been quite a sight when he walked through the city. His skin and hair would have been bleached white from the whale’s stomach acid, so he would have looked like a ghost. Jonah certainly got the attention of the Ninevites, but it wasn’t just his unusual appearance that interested them. The Ninevites heard and responded to the message that Jonah preached, and they did so with remarkable humility. In the scheme of things, it seems that God was using the Ninevites of all people to model to Israel the kind of response he wanted from them. At this time, Israel was running astray from God and not responding to his warnings. But at the same time they saw themselves as morally and spiritually superior to other nations, particularly the Assyrians who they felt were the most evil people of all. So, God was showing them that their reluctance to respond to God made them worse than the Assyrians. At least the people of Nineveh were willing to be corrected by God. One of the most important virtues is the humility to heed God’s correction. We tend to measure our spirituality by things like our self-perceived morality, our past spiritual experiences, our spiritual gifts, our biblical knowledge, or even our spiritual zeal. But the humility to see your faults is more important than all these things. When did you last recognise some significant fault in yourself? And I don’t mean just moments of thoughtless action. I’m talking about deep attitudes and desires. There is grace for you and great freedom in Christ if only you will see the worst in yourself.
Ask God to give you the humility to be open to correction.
Read Jonah 3
