7.27.2026 - Matt Hekman

July 27

Greetings readers. My name is Matt Hekman. I’m one of the elders currently serving on our church council. I’ve written this week’s devotionals around the topic of God’s Patience. The first passage we’ll look at together is from the book of Jonah. Let’s jump in at the beginning of chapter 3. We’ll read through chapter 4, verse 4, but I encourage you to read the whole book for context. It should only take you a few minutes.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 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. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

We see in the book of Jonah a great deal of patience on God’s part. He is patient with both Jonah and with the Ninevites. The Ninevites were not God’s chosen people. He could have decided it was not worth the trouble to have anyone “preach against the city of Nineveh.” He could have simply destroyed them or just left them to their own destruction. But he chose to give them a chance to repent.

When Jonah decided to “run away from the Lord”, as if one could do that, God did not decide to destroy him and send some other willing prophet. God was patient with Jonah, preserving his life for the sake of the Ninevites. God showed his slowness to anger with both Jonah and Nineveh.

Jonah’s reluctant obedience bears the fruit of repentance in the city of Nineveh. The least to the greatest believed Jonah’s message of eminent destruction and they did all they could to stop it. God demands righteousness and desires that all strive for it. He gave Nineveh a chance to repent and obey. In Jesus we have the ultimate chance to repent and gain the righteousness of Christ that we can’t obtain on our own. In a similar sort of way, the Ninevites received grace they didn’t know they needed to keep them from well-deserved destruction.

Jonah knew that God was “gracious and compassionate,” “slow to anger and abounding in love,” and it made Jonah so mad that he wanted to die, saying “now take away my life” in 4:3.

Its not hard to look at all the evil in the world and wonder why God lets it continue. We may even become angry like Jonah, wondering how long God will be patient with “them.” Maybe God is waiting patiently for his truth to be told.

Are you reluctant to tell the truth of the Gospel – that God’s judgement is real, but by his grace we can be saved from it? What if you told God’s truth to “them” and they believed? Would you react like Jonah? I hope not, but there’s only one way to find out. Don’t worry, God will be patient with you until you do…