The Legacy of Jonah

What is Jonah's legacy? I have read in Job and Jonah and Matthew and Proverbs, all over the Bible in recent weeks, then today Amberly and Zoey watched the Veggie Tales Movie with the Story of Jonah and in doing so made me look at this story again, mainly because of the way that they ended it, not the movie but the story part. See so much of the Bible has some type of redemptive quality to it. Noah's Ark saves Humanity, The Plagues of Egypt lead to the freedom of the Hebrew Slaves, Job's trials end in justification and blessing from God, not because of Job's righteousness. Even Jonah's eventual obedience leads to a revolution in repentance for the people of Ninevah, even if it is short lived (they are judged at a later time.) But Jonah's personal story ends with the man of God shaking his fist at the sky and refusing to see that the destruction meant for the people of Ninevah is not reserved just for that people group. How hard to remember that he was in the belly of a big fish so recently, and while God allowed those three days to teach a lesson to Jonah he missed out on a few of the essentials. He got the idea of obedience but missed out on the idea of grace, understood the capacity of punishment but missed the picture of mercy, and so when he sat on the hill over the town he cared more about a plant than he did about a person. How many times in my life have I been that way? Sadly I believe it's a lot more often than I would care to admit. I have cared more about a program or about a plan or about a concept than the people that matter. It's easy to do and it's easily justified, still I don't want to sit on the hill and shake my fist at God while other people are living and moving and having their being in the God of Light and Life. What about you?