Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 15 December 2018

Counting down the days to Winter, to Christmas, to 2019, and to Spring.
Today is the grand Birthday Party for next-door Great-Niece.  They make a Big Deal of it, so we are obligated to attend the Great Occasion.  There are or were some last-minute changes:  the original plan as I understood it, was to have it starting around 1:00 p.m., which is, of course, the same time as the Church Christmas Party, meaning that we couldn't go to both and had to attend the Birthday event.  So, earlier, we learned that the party is to be held after dark.  Great.  Too late now to make the changes to attend both.  So, we're leaving in just a few minutes. 
The life of a hermit monk sounds very attractive some times.  I don't know off-hand of any orders of Baptist monks.  If someone knows of one, well, it's too late now.

One of the side effects of the lives we've led, is that we've made friends and contacts with people all around the world.  Wife, for example, was born in the Panama Canal Zone in a military facility (this was before the idiot in the White House gave up the presence there).  We literally have contact with people all over the world, either traveling through or  based there.  I have one friend in Israel this moment, after a journey that had him in Japan, Viet Nam, and Cambodia.  Another is in Arizona right now, but by next week he may be in Japan or various "hot spots" in Africa.  And so forth.  Today being my birthday, I've been getting messages from all over.  Some of these people I will never see again, or at least in this life.  That makes the dynamics just a bit odd.


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Jonah 3

1And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

5So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

6For 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.

7And 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:

8But 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.

9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

10And 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.

Jonah 4

1But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

2And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

3Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

5So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

6And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

7But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

8And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

9And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

10Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

11And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?