God's Not Bored

We had been over this more times than I could count.  How many times must we repeat ourselves for this pre-k drama queen to understand that the world doesn't revolve around her friends' opinions of her? "I'm afraid other people won't like me," she told me.  I had tried to talk her through this before, consoling her and offering encouragement. This time I had had enough.  "If you don't want to play with your friends, that's your choice," I told her kindly, but firmly.

But a few minutes later, as she still wiped crocodile tears and looked to me for consolation, I tried to talk her through it one more time.  "Does God love you?" I asked, only slightly impatiently, to encourage her to think through this on her own.  "No," she answered.  "I think He gets bored of us."

Even in the Deep Blue Sea
There really is no other way to put it.

Disgusting. It had to be disgusting. There in that great fish for three days and nights with seaweed, saltwater, undigested plankton, and whatever else it ate - the smell alone must have been repulsive.

As easy as it might be to feel sorry for someone in that predicament, Jonah had no one to blame for it but himself.

His own choices, his own decisions, his own disobedience brought him here.  He should stay here - a long time.  Maybe forever, don't you think? God is under no obligation to rescue Jonah from the prison he brought on himself.

But.

Prison Life
Just a few short hours before I found myself counseling my five-year-old friend, I had flipped the pages to my daily Bible reading assignment: Psalm 69.

Just like Jonah, our little drama queen was in a prison she had fashioned for herself. But they were never alone there. "For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners" (Psalm 69:33).

Here I was, with a little girl in a "prison" of fear of man - a prison where I have made my own home far too often.

Time and Time Again
Does He get bored of us?  It would make sense if He did.  Day in, day out, the same mistakes over and over.

Every day I get myself in another mess.  It's my fault, my problem.  What if I have the same problem as Jonah? As our drama queen? As nearly everyone in the history of the human race?  Does He grow weary of rescuing us time and time again from the same predicaments?  Does He get bored of His creation of man?

I would.  But He doesn't.

He does not despise His own people who are prisoners...