"Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
Jonah 4:3, ESV
Anyone who was part of children's Sunday school will remember Jonah for being swallowed by a whale but never for being swallowed by his own self-pity. Looking at the prophet's life, we can learn what God has to say to those who battle with self-pity just like Jonah.
Pity might sound like a strong word, but it's the word we often look for a lot of times to describe how we feel towards ourselves. A few years back, I was a struggling Christian running away from God's call to go full time into vocational ministry, which meant leaving a strong and growing business I had built with my bare hands.
Just like the destiny fugitive Jonah, after entering into God's call and feeling the weight of it, I was pretty shocked. I struggled financially, relationally and spiritually to keep up the fight, and no matter how hard I tried, there would be a lot of moments when I would lose a battle or two. And, just like Jonah who sat down outside of Nineveh, I wallowed in self-pity.
We all have this notion that when we give our lives to Christ and surrender to Him fully everything will be okay and we'll be fine until either we die or Jesus comes back. Then trials come our way, and then we try to hide behind self-pity, thinking it's the best way to respond.
The bondage of self-pity can be a heart-hardening one. When self-pity comes, it usually comes in the form of a strong sense of self-centredness, where all we can think of is our needs. That's what Jonah struggled with. Here he was under the shade of a vine, and then God cuts it with a worm, and Jonah is left wallowing over the fact that God just saved a city from destruction but couldn't save the prophet from the heat. And then he wanted to die. Well, that escalated quickly.
But that's what self-pity does to us—it hardens our hearts until we can barely feel when our feelings are making sense or not. That is not God's plan for you. He wants you healed not just in your body but in your soul as well. He wants you in faith. He wants you putting your full hope in Christ. Self-pity does not allow that to happen.
Ezekiel 36:26b says, "...And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (ESV). When we wallow in self-pity, we fall under the sin of selfishness numbed by the hardness of our hearts. But Jesus comes to replace that hardness with a sensitive heart that doesn't just look to the needs of the self, but the needs of others and of God.
To be dragged down by self-pity is to fall for the lie that God cannot and will not take care of us and that we have to deal with our own needs. God cares about your needs and provides for you through Christ Jesus.
