The book of Jonah ends with a question mark. The question was intended for Jonah and for us today. We're not told explicitly how Jonah answered, but we must answer for ourselves: Do our attitudes, concerns, and priorities reflect the heart of God?
4 Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. 2 He prayed to the Lord, "Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. 3 And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4 The Lord asked, "Is it right for you to be angry?"Jonah 4:1-4 CSB
Salvation Isn't Just About Us
Jonah prayed but a self-centered tone washed over his prayer, evidenced by the multiple occurrences of first-person pronouns (compare Luke 18:11-12).
Jonah was furious with the wideness of God's forgiving love.
5 Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. 7 When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.
8 As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, "It's better for me to die than to live."
9 Then God asked Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"
"Yes, it's right!" he replied. "I'm angry enough to die!"
10 And the Lord said, "You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11 So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than a hundred twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?"Jonah 4:5-11 CSB
Do We Care as God Cares?
Apparently, the forty days of the prophecy weren't complete yet, but their end was near enough; Jonah may have held out a bitter wish that the people would quickly go back to their evil ways. If they did, surely the Lord would destroy the city after all.
Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. Yet he never stopped to consider the divine grace behind it.
Isolated in the desert and close to death, Jonah was nevertheless not alone. God met him there and spoke to him again.
In leaving the book open-ended, the Lord can use it today to probe our attitudes about divine grace and compassion for the lost peoples of the world.