Vines and Worms
Welcome to another episode of Rough Places into Level Ground! Today’s podcast is called Vines and Worms, and we will be looking at Jonah and Elijah and how aspects of their stories speak into ours. Today we will be working from Jonah 4 and 1 Kings 19.
Both men have some things in common. To begin with each is so disheartened and struggling with circumstances that they have asked God to take their life. Each is focused on himself, and the way in which circumstances are engulfing their lives. Both men also knew God. Jonah knew God was merciful and wanting to give grace to all who would seek him and repent, but Jonah did not feel this was right. Elijah also knew God and His strength, miracles, and provision.
Jonah is angry. He is angry at what he believes is an unjust circumstance. He is angry that God did not treat the brutal Assyrians the way Jonah believed He should. Instead, God is treating them with grace and mercy. And when they repented of their evil ways and called out to God, God spared them and this angered Jonah. For in Jonah’s judgement, they deserved to be wiped out. Jonah did what God asked him to, he went to the Assyrians to proclaim punishment and then God in His steadfast love, grace and mercy spared the people of Nineveh. In Jonah’s eyes this was unjust, and against what Jonah believed was right. Jonah was so filled with self, pride, anger and what he deemed right, just, and fair, that he asked to die.
Elijah was also so filled with self that he too asked God to just take his life. Elijah had just come off a big victory for God. He had just finished wiping out the false prophets of Baal and showed the people it was in God’s strength and miraculous intervention that he was able to do so. And all the people fell on their faces and said, “The Lord He is God; the Lord He is God.” But, following Elijahs victory, King Ahab told his wife Jezebel what had happened, and she swore to take Elijah’s life. Elijah began feeling like a failure, he was filled with a self-focus and a terrifying fear of Jezebels threats and he ran away. Instead of running to who he knew was the all-powerful God, who had cared for him, in such miraculous strength, he ran, not just away, but far away into the wilderness. Elijah’s focus was on himself and his circumstance. And Elijah, tired, discouraged, and disheartened, wanted to die.
There are times in all our stories when circumstances engulf and overwhelm us. Times we rail against what we judge to be injustice and wrongs done to us, times when we fight circumstances and are victorious only to then find ourselves failing into despair. We all face times when circumstances draw our focus to be on ourselves and we fall prey to self-pity. The longer our focus is on us, the longer we do not readjust our course to come back to a God focus, and the more our wounds are kept open and are not healed. This perspective can even block our seeing all the Lord is trying to do to help us, heal and comfort us.
In both men’s stories we see God reaching towards them to bring them back to Him and to the safety of His care. In this instance with Jonah, we see God reaching to Jonah in his wilderness to provide him a vine to shade him and ease his discomfort. This made Jonah happy. Jonah was focused on himself, and loved the good gift, perhaps more than the giver of the gift. But God was not done reaching to Jonah and send a worm to destroy the vine. As soon as the vine was gone, Jonah was angry again, and when the gift of the vine was gone Jonah said he had no reason to live. Jonah’s happiness was tied to the wrong things, as all earthly comforts fade, but God’s grace and mercy never do. Jonah liked the good gift, liked the good times but faltered in the challenging times, and did not trust that God in His sovereignty, would do what is just and show mercy, grace and ultimate care for all people and things. Be it times of vines or worms, God’s hand is always in our lives. And when our focus is on God, we can go to Him, cry to Him and He will be there to help us, and to strengthen us for all the times and trials we will face in this life.
In this world we experience good and bad, times of vines and times of worms. These times sometimes result from circumstances that have little to do with us, sometimes resulting from our decisions, and sometimes they are from God. But regardless God is in every one of them with us and will always use them for our ultimate good to teach us and grow us to be more like Jesus. Romans 8:28 tells us that in all things God works for our good. No matter what we face God wants us to learn to depend on Him, to seek Him and trust in His care for us. God uses all for our good, and even when we cannot understand, we must trust in Him.
In the instance with Elijah, we see God sending an angel to provide food and water to Elijah and God entering his wilderness and despair. When the angel first came to Elijah, he was so exhausted that he ate and fell back asleep and God had to send the angel again. Elijah recognized and accepted God’s provision and gentle care for him. Amid his depression, fear, exhaustion, and desire not to go on, God was there. Scripture tells us that God knew the journey was too much for Elijah. And Elijah ate and went again on his journey forty days in the strength of God.
Whether or not God brings, or allows the vines and worms of our circumstance, He will use them to help us and call us back to a right focus. To a focus on Him and not self, and a walk knowing that God is by our side, guiding, sustaining, and caring for us. To Jonah God sent a vine and a worm. To Elijah God sent an angel with food. God knows exactly what each of us needs and tailors His interventions specifically to each of us.
When we are caught in the Jonah cycle, or when we are caught in the exhaustion of fighting our trials, we need to cry out to God to help us, to help us move past our sense of self-righteousness, self- pity, exhaustion and wanting to give up. We must be aware of these times in our lives because these are the times we are at risk to miss God’s provisions for us, and miss the reality of God’s sovereignty, goodness, mercy, and grace for us.
Will you look from the circumstances in your life to God? Will you call upon Him to help you see beyond all you struggle with and the times you may not understand? Will you be open to His help and trust He will work within you through the vines and worms, the victories, and failures, the times when we are on top of the world and the times we have fallen so far down, we don’t believe we will ever come back up? Vines and worms come and go in our lives, good times, times we will miss and mourn, and times of struggle and injustice, but God’s presence is constant and sustaining. God knows the journey can become too much for us. And when we look beyond ourselves and look to Him and accept and recognize His provision and strength for us, we like Jonah and Elijah will find that is truly what will sustain and heal us.
Please join me in prayer as we close. Father, we give thanks for your word that guides us, calls us to you, comforts and heals us from every trial this life brings. Help us seek you more, trust you more and call out to you more to walk with us every day. In Jesus name, Amen
Thanks for listening and until next time, praise God and God bless.
