Jonah's God and Mine

  There is a tendency, with me anyways, to think of God in two parts. He was the just and holy God of the Old Testament, and now He is the loving, compassionate, and intimate God of the New Covenant. God is unchanging. While He is new every morning, that is simply because we are for the first time seeing a facet of His character we could not before comprehend. The God I know is just as just and holy as He was thousands of years ago. And the God the Israelites knew was just as loving and compassionate as He is today.
  For the past few months, I have been reading through the prophets. While they are proclamations of judgment, they also echo with whispers of mercy and coming hope. And after reading the book of Jonah, I cannot help but think that the mercy of God was plainly seen by His people.
  Most are familiar with the story of Jonah. He was a prophet who was given a message of judgment to proclaim the people of Nineveh, the enemies of Israel. Instead of following the Lord's command, Jonah fled. After a major wake-up call (which I will not go into right now) Jonah obeyed the Lord's command and went to Nineveh, and proclaimed to them the message he was given. When the people of Nineveh heard Jonah's message of judgment, they repented of their sins and the Lord showed them mercy.
  This is the part where the story get interesting. After proclaiming the message of judgment Jonah went and camped outside of Nineveh, waiting for God to punish the sinful people. God did not, however, punish the people of Nineveh because of their repentance. So Jonah went and moped outside of Nineveh, and he was moping because of God's mercy. Jonah knew that God was full of mercy and compassion, and he did not want to give his enemies a message of judgment because if they repented God would show them mercy.
  Today, God is still the same God He was then. Though we as people deserve punishment for our many sins, God wants to show us His great love and mercy. And all we have to do is humble ourselves before Him and repent of our sins. He is faithful and He shows us a great love we could never deserve.