How Long is the Pity Party?

“But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah 4:1-4

I could start today’s blog out by asking who has ever had their feelings hurt.

I could but I won’t. I don’t need to.

Assuming honesty, the answer would be yes from 100% of you.

It happens.

Nothing new there.

Someone let you down.

You were disappointed by another persons’ lack of sensitivity.

You expected better of them.

And, not only have you been at the receiving end – you also have hurt others feelings.

Not only do we hurt one another’s feelings, but sometimes our feelings are hurt because we become offended with God.

More often than not it is because (as we discussed yesterday) we assign blame to God that is not justifiably laid at His feet.

We claim God has directed us in a specific area of our lives and rather than admit it was our own flesh and not Him that led us to where we find ourselves, we take offense at Him.

Our feelings are hurt and we put on a ‘spiritual pout’.

You know what that is – we distance ourselves from fellowship, see no need for repentance and hold back in prayer until the next crisis finds us banging loudly on heaven’s door.

You’re so predictable!

Me too.

But here’s the good news.

While God has no interest in feeding our pity party, He is still there waiting for us when we ‘come to our senses’ and repent of our behavior and misplaced blame.

 He forgives us.

We can move forward together.

How long is the pity party?

That is up to you!