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Jonah is one of my favorite prophets. I often wonder if he would have liked me. Perhaps he would have, perhaps not. When I read the Book of Jonah I get the feeling that Jonah was one of those people who loved nature and animals but found humanity a trifle hard to stomach. When God created the gourd whose beautiful large leaves shaded Jonah, Jonah loved it. When God created a worm to destroy the gourd, Jonah grieved. God tried to make Jonah love the people of Nineveh, and the only thing he could say to cause Jonah to understand how devastating destruction might be for the land of Nineveh was to mention the thousands of cattle who would be killed if God actually went ahead with his plans to destroy that evil city.
Jonah is one of the few people in the Bible who actually becomes angry with God because of God's kindness. Jonah knew God all too well. And the thought that his enemies would be forgiven and that he was not going to get his way was so hard for him to bear that he cried out, "It is better for me to die than to live."
Imagine that. We have someone saying "I would rather die than live." What a strange thing for a man of God to say? And yet, many Christians have such wounded spirits that they often wish to die rather than live. The Bible tells us "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but the desire accomplished is a tree of life." (Prov 13:12) It also states, "A wounded spirit who can bear?" (Prov 18:14)
The wounding of the spirit often leaves even the most faithful believer with a feeling of hopelessness. Their view becomes limited and they cannot see a good end to their dilemma. Their minds are so overwhelmed that they cannot see the thoughts that God has for them, thoughts of good and not of evil to give them a future or a promise.
The devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And he does this by working in the mind. The Holy Spirit causes us to love, to hope and to believe, but the demons of this world want us to doubt, to hate, and to despair.
St. Paul encourages us to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are also told to shun vain imaginings and to rejoice in all situations. Rejoicing not only affirms our belief that God is indeed taking care of us, but it is a great weapon against the enemy. Satan is destroyed by the praises spoken and sung from the heart and mouth of a believing Christian.
But how are we to shun vain imaginings? And what exactly is vain imagination? To understand what the destructive negative thoughts are we need the help of the Holy Spirit. Quite often, the thoughts in our minds are fighting against the prayers we pray and the words we speak. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through ministers, through the Bible, through friends, through holy songs in the night (or day) and through dreams.
Let me give you an example.
There was a time in my life when I reached a point where I felt it would be much better to die and go to heaven than stay in life and suffer. I knew I felt this way but soon I received a series of dreams. Many Christians are affected by the Aristotelian philosophy that says dreams don't really matter, but the people we meet in the Bible understood the nature and importance of dreams.
Daniel 2:21-23 declares that "God reveals the darkness of our hearts to us." The Book of Job goes even further and states that God uses dreams to turn a man's feet from death. (Job 33:14-18)
In the first dream, I dreamt that a rich, passionate young man (unknown to me) came to me and said, "I will take you away from all this poverty and I will give you perfect passionate love and understanding." In the dream, I looked about at my very poor house and my poor, hardworking, and unromantic husband and I said, "No, I can't do that. I have to stay here." Then I burst into tears. The dream ended.
The Holy Spirit had shown me the devil's devices. A dilemma had been created in my thought-life, and the despairing unbelieving thoughts in my mind were as follows: In order to live and to be truly happy, you need to get away from this poverty and this unromantic cold husband. But you're a Christian and even if someone rich and romantic arrived on the scene, you wouldn't betray him because you don't want to devastate your family. But you truly can't live here like this anymore, and certainly not with a husband such as this. The best thing to do is to escape by dying.
The Holy Spirit had shown me the devil's plan. Satanic plotting and human despair had created a situation where my body was pretty much telling itself to die because dying would be the ONLY way to any kind of happiness. That is how the devil works, by telling us that there is no way out of our circumstances. This is the same thing that happened with Jonah and with many people: their imaginations become limited and they cannot see any OTHER possible outcome. Jonah couldn't imagine the Ninevites being non-murderous --even if they repented. I couldn't imagine getting out from under all that debt or having a less cold husband. But praise the Lord, God makes a way where there is no way.
Remember Jabez. (I Chron 4:9), We don't know much about his life. All we know is that his mother named him Jabez because she bore him in sorrow. There was another mother who bore her child in sorrow: Rachel. She wanted Jacob to call her second son "Ben-oni" --Son of my sorrow. But Jacob called the boy "Benjamin" – son of my right hand. (Genesis 35:18) Jacob always knew how to turn grief into hope. One can only imagine what the life of Jabez' mother was like. One can also imagine what she told her son and how he was affected by his mother's grief. And yet, there came a time in his life when he said to God, "please expand my territories." God, please expand my mind and unbound it. And God answered him.
We too must learn how to dream. We must free our minds from the limitations we have inherited and from the worldly thinking surrounding us. We must take control of every thought and make the negative thoughts captive to Christ's gospel. With God ALL things are possible. The Bible tells us the theological truth about our lives. And the theological truth makes us more than conquerors over the pathological realities. But we must fight the good fight of faith, and this is --more often than not-- a mental fight. We just have to learn to hope and believe and create new more hopeful images in our minds. We must believe that God has given us a future and a promise. We must not allow the devil to steal our joy or to take our lives.
In order for us to pray well, and to speak God's promises over our lives, we must truly know that there is a way out. We must fight all temptations to despair or to doubt. We must not lean unto our own understanding. In the meantime, we must learn to praise God while we wait for our seed to flower into blessing. We walk by faith, not by sight. And underneath us are the loving everlasting arms.
"Search me o God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting."
Carole McDonnell's fiction, devotionals, poetry and essays have appeared in many publishing venues, in print and online. She is the author of The Easy Way to Write and Teach Bible Studies. She lives with her husband, their two sons, and their ferocious tabby Ralphina in upstate New York. If you would like to comment on this article email:
Writers@BlessedLady.com
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