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When we Carry Things too Heavy

Posted on 20. Jul, 2010 by Karen True in food for thought

I was barely a toddler when the milkman paid us regular visits. He dropped off bulky bottles fresh from the dairy, and my Dad and I carried in the milk. Norman Rockwell would surely have been inspired to immortalize the scene. That is, until the day I dropped the glass bottle, spilled the milk and ended up with 13 stitches. My Dad still shudders when he recalls the incident. I still have the scar.

The scar reminds me that it hurts to carry things that are too heavy.

Wrath, revenge and anger are burdens we were never meant to bear. Those are God-sized chores that weigh down a human soul like a child on a grown-up’s errand. Just ask Jonah.

Jonah was God’s prophet. A prophet’s job description was simple. God wrote the speeches. Prophets delivered them. God assignment for Jonah was to warn Nineveh of its coming doom. We get only as far as the second sentence in the story when we learn that Jonah “ran away from the Lord.” (Jon. 1:3) God’s man went AWOL, and not until the end of the story do we learn why.

Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. (Jon. 4:1-2)

The irony is that Jonah was among a rare group of prophets whose missions actually saw short-term success. The people of Nineveh turned to God while the prophet sat snarl-faced and clenched-fist on a hillside outside the city.

I wish I’d been there to tell him. It hurts when carry things that are too heavy.

Tags: Anger, Jonah