Prayer: Dear God, guide us each day and help us know our left from right. Amen
Reading: Jonah 3: 10 – 4: 11 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: When describing someone totally clueless or helpless, one phrase is, ”He doesn’t know his left hand from his right.” Makes you feel kind of bad for that person. It’s meant to be funny to say that but imagine being so confused? Not knowing which way to turn. And even if told which way, not sure which left is right? Sounds like Jonah who was sent to the Ninevites. Jonah is told which way to go, balks about going, goes the opposite way (perhaps Jonah’s excuse was he didn’t know his right from his left?), gets thrown off a boat (because it is suspected the deadly storm may be all his fault), swallowed by a whale, spit up on dry land, spoken to again by the LORD (“How about trying your other left this time?”), and the story goes on… …until Jonah went the way he was supposed to (the right left?), the Ninevites turned from their evil ways and God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them. My goodness what a story of getting left and right mixed up. So, it does not surprise me it ends with God simply saying, “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh…persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” Or maybe God is saying he did not have enough whales to swallow up all the Ninevites until they figured out which way to go? So, good job, Jonah, even if at first you didn’t know your right hand from your left. You found your way. The Ninevites found their way. Guide us all, patient God. --Ruth Gates
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