I began reading Jonah yesterday... and the commentary at the beginning states that it is hard to like Jonah.. I really have never thought that... it went on to say that he felt the assyrians or the people from ninevah were unloveable.. the truth is that the assyrians had long been persecuting israel.. so of course they were not friendly... but when it said that he felt they were not worthy of being loved or worthy of God's grace.. that made me look at it in a different light... like the woman of samaria that Jesus should not have bothered with... if he were to go along with all that his people felt about the samarians at that time.. now I didn't really understand this samarian thing because they too are israelites.. but when the country separated after david's death there was israel which was the northern nation and judah which was the southern nation... they were one nation but divided and they had alot of anger and hostility between them... 

while we see that as far fetched or out dated.. is it really? there is still much racial tension in the united states.. over 100yrs later... (after the civil war and end of slavery) there is racism with the mexicans.. the cubans... the whites.. the blacks.. you name it.. there is racism against it even now... and truly even all these years later.. germans are still carrying the weight of the holocaust... we still feel some type of way about vietnamese because of the viet nam war... 

now bring it down into your own house.. we can say that we are not like this... but we are.. we all have our own prejudices and feelings about people who are not worth anything... (even though we would never use these words..) and this is not really meaning about individuals.. I am talking about general groups of people we are 'racist' about... most of us have experienced this classism or racism in some manner against us too... 

now imagine that God sent you to those people to speak the word about God... this is the story of jonah... and that is why he didn't want to do it... and I can understand it when put in that context.. but even then... would I be willing to be the one that went to preach to them? to tell them of God's love.. or would I feel like it was to be left up to someone else? 

this is our lives.. every day we meet someone we could speak about God's love to... and just about every day.. we keep it to ourselves... thinking it is someone else's job...