What Job, Joseph, and Jonah Feels Like?

Job was a righteous man. He got everything he ever needed and wanted. He had a happy family, good health, wealth and a prominent position in his society. Until God let Satan tests him. He lost everything valuable - his children, wealth, prominent position, and his health. What was left with him was his wife who told him to curse God and then commit suicide; and his three (3) close friends who tried to explain that his misfortunes were caused by his major sins, though they knew better that Job committed none.

Joseph was a devoted son and loving brother. Yet his brothers hated him, would not even speak nice to him, and sold him to slavery. As a slave, Joseph was a responsible servant and did nothing evil against his master. Yet his master's wife seduced him, accused him, and the master sent him to jail. He was sentenced for a crime he did not commit, yet he remained steadfast in his faith and chose to honor God wherever he may be.

Jonah was a prophet. God told him to go to Nineveh to proclaim His word. He did not heed, he boarded a ship going the opposite way to where God instructed him to go. God sent a storm. The people in the ship had to throw Jonah off the sea to save their lives.

What Job, Joseph, and Jonah feels like?

Job must be hurt by the words of his wife and close friends more than the insults hurled to him by neighbors and strangers. I think what hurt him the most was that the God he worships played deaf to his prayers and had allowed him to go through sufferings he don't deserved. For none can hurt you most than the ones you love best. 

Joseph must have wondered why his very own blood rejected him. He must have sleepless nights in a foreign land. He must have lost faith in humanity when the very master he served with all his strength and he made prosperous sent him to jail.

Jonah as prophet, he knew he must obey God, yet he chose to go the other way. His disobedience could be out of fear of the people of Nineveh (for they were so evil, God wanted to wipe them off). OR It could be fear of failure - for what if what he proclaims would not happen. OR He really wanted Nineveh to be wipe off. 

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Yep, nobody can understand how God works and His ways of putting His children in the places He had intended them to be. 

Jonah learned his lesson after being in darkness for 3 days and nights in the belly of a big fish. He obeyed God and become the most effective evangelist of all time - as he was able to move the whole city of Nineveh to repentance.

In servant-hood and prison, Joseph was honed to fulfill what God had intended him to be - a governor of a whole nation.  God reunited him to his family and became the instrument in saving his people and others from famine.

Job in his intense self-defense, had seen and heard God. He used to know God only through others and through the good life he had experienced. After praying for his three close friends, God restored everything he lost and even doubled his wealth. (I just wished he did not go back to the same wife who asked him to curse God.)

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A lot of times, I feel like Jonah, like God told me to be kind and ignore an offense, yet out of pride had hurt back those who hurt me, or had mirrored back the offenses done to me. When God had asked me to be like Job or Joseph, patient in their suffering, and meek in their ordeals. They forgave without a doubt the ones who hurt them, and had even prayed for them. Their meekness and obedience to forgive had taken them places and had restored their blessings. They have tasted that the Lord is indeed good and faithful.

So, today, I bestow complete forgiveness to those who have hurt/put me down with intent. I also ask forgiveness for mirroring such intent and using my words to slash people out. May God in His loving mercy, bless those people with good things.

To the one who thinks I hate the very core of your personality. I DO NOT. Out of pride, and difference in point of views; we needlessly put each other's lives in hell. I forgave you, and I also ask for forgiveness. I pray that God will restore every good thing you lost and take away anything that hinders you from becoming the  best person that you can be. 

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Yep, now I understand the lesson, when God asks you to be kind and represent Him as the Good and Perfect Father that he is, regardless how circumstances are and how people treat you. He's not asking it just so other people can benefit. He is asking it, so I can see and taste on my own that He is good and generous, just like how Joseph and Job had seen and tasted. And to witness, how merciful God is, just like the people of Nineveh had witnessed. However, He is also just, and none of those who continue to do wrong will escape His justice.