Who Is Your Nineveh? Part 1

We studied the brutality with which the Assyrians oppressed and conquered the surrounding people groups during the time of Jonah. They are actually believed to be the first civilization to commit genocide. All of us agree that Jonah's apprehension that God would show mercy on this city carried some merit.

I just finished reading Band of Brothers, which is a book about a paratroop infantry division during WWII. At the end of the book, the troops were celebrating the end of the war, when one of the soldiers heard a tip that an SS officer involved in creating the concentration camps was hiding out in a barn. Without telling a commanding officer who would have probably made him a prisoner of war, the soldier hunted him down and shot him. I felt a sense of satisfaction as I read the story. Justice was served... And then I thought of our friend Jonah, and I thought about the heart of God, and I thought about my heart.

Who is my Nineveh? Who are those people in my life that I think deserve what they are getting? Who are those people that just bother me, and I could care less about what they are going through? Who are those people that I have no compassion for and I am hardened toward? Those people that drive us crazy, irritate, hurt, repulse, bother ... They are in our workplaces, they are in our families, they live on our street, and they sit next to us at church. We wouldn't say it, but we think we are better, we act as their judge. We are Jonah, and they are our Nineveh.

What would our world, church, lives look like if we came before God and prayed for our Nineveh's, and asked our merciful Father if He would do for us, what He did for them. I think He would be pleased. After all, we were His Nineveh.