Month: January 2019

Pass on your way . . . in nakedness and shame. Micah 1:11 While on a job interview for my first real job as a physician, I realized an hour in that my zipper was down. It was awful. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t fix it without drawing attention to it. Though fully clothed, I felt…
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Behold, the Lord is coming out of his place . . . And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire . . . Micah 1:3-4 I remember once watching a movie in which the main character began to dabble in criminal activity to get himself out…
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God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” Jonah 4:9 While enslaved to our pathologic appetites, addicts are not known for thinking clearly. Reason is often overruled by preference and though there are mountains of evidence…
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Jonah went out of the city . . . He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Jonah 4:5 You’re only sorry that you got caught. It’s been said of me and I’ve said it of others. When secret, destructive behavior becomes not-so-secret anymore, and the consequences…
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“O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” Jonah 4:3 In the throes of my addiction, I became angry at God. You created me with this destructive appetite. I’ve begged you to take it…
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But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry . . . “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.” Jonah 4:1-2 For the last week, my son and I have been playing the new battlefield video game he got for Christmas. Before each game starts, players assemble in a staging area where…
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When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Jonah 3:10 Every morning, I read tomorrow’s passage, and then spend the day thinking on it, asking myself a few of questions. What…
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Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. Jonah 3:4-5 In today’s passage, Jonah finally went to Nineveh, preaching to the people that God was going to destroy them for their evil behavior. They…
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Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh . . .” Jonah 3:1 I often write of the disastrous consequences of my addiction, but I don’t often write about all the warning tremors that came before the great earthquake. In my addiction, constantly terrified of discovery, I…
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And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Jonah 2:10 I love the story of Jonah because I identify so well with this man who believed in God and yet remained so deeply flawed. I empathize with his self-inflicted misery and I understand that he only became…
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