The biggest cankerworm that will take you out of the shade of the Almighty is the worm that is trying to steal your very soul. It is the one folly of man to see God heal only to want to destroy a city/ or repent group of people because of the healing or because of their willingness to bend to their knees before God. If we look at Jonah journey in his life, he was sent to Nineveh to preach repentance only to run and need repentanting himself. Yet in his journey he swallowed by a fish, and then is thrown up out the belly of the fish on the shore. And that is about where this story picks up, except he has decide to go where God has sent him to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh is obedient to the need to repent as if someone poured out oil upon the people and set them on fire. Meaning the Holy Spirit convicted the hearts of the people and they began to weep and mourn and ask what can we do and the king states that the city will repent of their sin and be covered in sack cloth and cry unto God forgiveness of their sin. The people did this in hopes that God would repent(turn away) from the evil he was going to do on an evil city who heart stood the correction of the Lord.

Jonah angry he walks up the hill in the heat of the day and God shelters him by a vine with a huge leaf that grows up over his head and gives him shade. God hoped that Jonah would repent of his attitude toward Nineveh, but Jonah was still angry the next day and so God sent a worm to destroy the protection from the heat over Jonah and he fainted and was miserable even more so, not understanding why God would protect an evil city such as Nineveh, forgeting his own backslidden state when he ran from God's call to go and preach to Nineveh and he ran.

How often we are angry at people for doing the right thing because our own hearts betray our anger toward a group of people that repent, and seek God's forgiveness, vs, doing what Jonah did and run and hide from God. Our natural instinct is not always try and protect the sinner instead we allow them to go about doing what they do, until God destroys them. If God loves us enough to correct us, then why should God not correct a multitude of people at one time. Jonah had a problem, he could not see the hope God offered through his preaching, so God took away his shade so he could see what misery felt like without his protection.

Jesus came to save the world. Jews knew of God's protective hand on their life even in their sinfulness, and yet when Christ came to save even the gentiles, the Jews were upset by it. How upset are we when one lost sole is saved. If you are ask why? If my worse enemy repented and got saved, I decide I will rejoice. God protection is precious in the life of the believer, his shadow of protection covering us even when we sin. That is what the blood of Jesus does for us, it covers our sin, even after the day of salvation. It does not give us a license to sin, but it give us protection from the eternal wrath of God. Now if God corrects like he did David, then his shade is not so much removed, but sin as reach a point it breaking through that covering, it reaching the height of heaven, the mountain is high. In order for God to remove it and cast in the deep sea, he has to uncover it, and remove the thorn of sin that damaging our relationship with Him and our ability to teach others about his grace. God wants to cover us from the heat of the world we live in, from the destruction of the devil, but we have to receive those that want God's protection too, that fail in the storms of life. God can forgive the backslider, and a group of backsliders if they will turn to Him.

Dear Heavenly Father open hearts to love those you forgive that we wonder do they deserve your mercy. Help us to be merciful as you are in our life, and to show your love to those who seek your mercy and grace. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Continual Scripture Study: Jonah 3:6-10 KJV
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.