Being self-centered does not help us.

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When we set our hearts on God and surrender to Him, we find peace and freedom.

But Jonah was very dismayed and angry. 2 Then he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I hastened to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness, relenting from evil. 3 Now therefore, O LORD, please take my life from me; for death is better for me than life." 4 Then the LORD said to him, "Are you doing well to be so angry?" 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and camped east of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God prepared a plant that grew up over Jonah to give shade for his head and to relieve his pain. Jonah rejoiced greatly because of the plant. 7 But when the morning dawned the next day, God prepared a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun was up, God prepared a violent east wind, and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he became faint and wished to die. Jonah said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." 9 Then God said to Jonah, "Are you so angry about the plant?" Jonah said, "I am very angry, even to death." 10 Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work or make it grow; for in a night it sprang up and in a night it perished." 11 And should I not have mercy on Nineveh, that great city, where there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know how to discern between their right hand and their left hand, and many animals?

Jonah 4

At some point in our life there may be something that we are not willing to fully surrender to God, this can give us a certain feeling that we are independent of God, we think "I can only close quotes. By acting in this way we are being an obstacle to the work of God in us, he wants us to submit our will to him and for this the first thing is to recognize his power that acts in us.

There is a big difference between freedom and rebellion, in this case Jonah confused these terms. We see in the previous picture that the prophet is trapped with his own hatred. We observe that he was very angry when God showed his grace and mercy to the inhabitants of Nineveh, this is what he said in v. 9: "Then God said to Jonah: Are you so angry about the gourd? And he answered, I am very angry, even to death. He was really angry because he wanted these people to be destroyed while God used him to save more than 120,000 people.

Some confuse autonomy with freedom and they are NOT the same. Freedom implies service and devotion to God, freedom from sin and reconciliation with God. Jonah did well, that is, he obeyed with his body, but his heart was far from obeying God. In all aspects he resisted God while God tried to break his pride in different ways.

Each of us is free to make our own choices but the cost of those decisions can be very high. We can be immersed in a mess of thoughts and emotions and still God can rescue us to be useful and serve him in any circumstance.

Whatever the circumstances or consequences, the truth is that if we act independently of God, we are likely to move away from his blessing and a close relationship with him, this simply It is a very high price that we will have to pay and we would not like it at all. Today we have the opportunity and freedom to make the choice that we know is convenient, we obtain it by serving God and living in freedom and obedience.