Jonah 4:6

Jonah 4:6 says, And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. Jonah was in the hot sun, and God brought him relief in the form of a gourd that provided him shelter from the heat.  This is at least the second time God had met Jonah's physical needs.  We might wonder at the giant fish and the gourd, but they met a need.  We have to understand that it would have been just as easy for God to immediately place Jonah on dry land from the sea or to place clouds and a cool wind over Jonah, but God was attempting to help Jonah grow in faith and compassion.  Jonah was exceedingly glad that his physical need had been met.  We need to be careful that we don't rejoice more when God meets our physical needs than when He meets others spiritual needs.  Verse seven adds, But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.  God was not trying to bless and then torture Jonah. We can be sure that if we have been received a blessing from God and it is then taken away that it doesn't mean that God loves us any less.  Verse eight continues, And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.  God took away the shelter He had prepared for Jonah, and once again Jonah said it would be better for him to die.  Do we act the same way when we lose material blessings?  We may value something, or even someone, so highly that if we lose it or them, we feel that we would be better off dead.  Jonah was self-centered, and if we feel that way, so are we.  Verse nine states, And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.  Jonah felt justified in his anger.  He was not getting what he wanted.  We today may feel justified to feel angry unto death when things don't go our way, but that isn't God's will for us.  That is being self-centered. Verse ten adds, Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:  God was again attempting to teach Jonah.  He wanted Jonah to grow in his understanding of what is important, and He wants the same for us today.  Verse eleven continues, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?  God asks Jonah what was more important, the gourd or all the people of Nineveh.  We are not told Jonah's answer.  God asks us the same thing today.  What is more important, our physical comfort or the salvation of souls.  It is up to each of us to answer that question.